Somalis struggle to escape deadly floodwaters from recent torrential rains
By Abukar Albadri

Mogadishu - Flooding from recent torrential rains continued to submerge parts of East Africa on Wednesday, with the death toll in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya likely to be in the hundreds.
The situation is especially dire in anarchic Somalia, where a humanitarian crisis already exists and neither the internationally- backed interim government nor the powerful Islamists have been able to contain the disaster.
The UN said at least 52 people had died in Somalia, with more than 300,000 people affected and up to 1 million likely to be hit as the downpour continues.
Somalis have been forced to head to higher ground and many have been living in trees - some for more than a week - to escape the menacing waters.
'These are the worst floods I have ever seen,' said Haji Qorane Osman Ali, who was rescued from hard-hit Bulo Burte, about 200 kilometres north of the capital Mogadishu, after living in a tree for three days.
'The affected areas are like oceans. Three of my children are missing and my wife and others are still on the tree.'
The rains come months after a regional drought killed thousands of cattle and put some 12 million people in East Africa at risk of starvation. The parched soil has not been able to absorb the torrential rains that have been submerging entire villages in eastern Kenya and southern Somalia.
Rescued residents from Bulo Burte said some 20 people have been eaten by crocodiles, who have been swarming the rising waters.
'The crocodiles live in the remote areas. People have been climbing on the trees to escape from the water and the crocodiles but there are poisonous snakes on the trees,' Ali said.
The Islamists, who have begun restoring some semblance of authority to the lawless country since their rise to power, have been meeting with aid agencies to coordinate a response to the flooding.
A committee was set up to work with aid agencies and reach those affected by the flooding, but Islamist officials accused aid groups of inactivity.
Sheikh Abdulkader Ali Omar, a spokesman for this committee said Somalis had contributed money, food and clothes for the displaced.
'We collected 300,000 dollars through fundraising. It is a good start but this is not enough for the thousands on hills and in trees,' he said.
Elsewhere, some 80,000 have been displaced in Kenya with nearly 30 dead since the rains began last month. Main roads and bridges have been swept away by the surging waters, forcing humanitarian workers and relief supplies to be airlifted in to the flooded regions.
'The hundreds of thousands of people driven from their homes in both Somalia and Kenya by the floods need our help right now and delivering assistance by air is the only option with large numbers of them cut off by the floodwaters,' said Burkard Oberle, the UN World Food Programme's country director in Kenya.
In north-eastern Kenya, by the border with Somalia, the UN and other aid workers have struggled to reach refugees at the sprawling Dadaab camp and have begun shifting 'vulnerable' people from the low-lying Ifo camp to Hagadera, 20 kilometres away.
In Ethiopia, at least 80 people were killed and more then 300,000 displaced by the flooding that has submerged parts of the country. Hundreds were killed by flooding in Ethiopia earlier this year.

© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur