DEVELOPMENT-KENYA: Moslem Leaders Appeal For Relief Food

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Dec 9 1997 (IPS) - Moslem leaders here have appealed for relief aid for thousands of people affected by floods in northeast Kenya.

“We are appealing to the Kenya Government, the international and the non-governmental organisation communities for quick action to save lives of people on the brink of death,” said Ahmed Khalif, who is the Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims.

Khalif said in a statement distributed to news agencies here this week that the floods were most severe in Wajir District, some 600 kilometres northeast of the Kenyan capital.

“Continuous rains in Wajir District for the last two-and-half months have not only made road transportation impossible, they have made animals such as camel, goats, sheep and cattle immobile as the flat semi-desert lands are submerged … for kilometres and kilometres in many parts of the district,” he said.

“Hundreds of thousands of animals are stuck in the water and mud in the plains and are dying as they are unable to feed. The owners, unable to rescue their animals are flocking to Wajir, Hadado, Eldas, Arbijahan, Giriftu, Tarbaj, Habaswein centres for shelter and food,” added Khalif.

He said there was no food in Wajir District as the shops were empty and that “the extraordinary rains have completely cut off the district from the rest of the country, effectively stopping the supply of commercial food in shops as well as famine relief to the district”.

As a result, Khalif disclosed, the prices of foodstuffs have gone up by 250 percent in the region which is ill equipped to cope with floods since it usually suffers from drought.

“People are starving and there is a disaster in the making,” he stated. “The lives of both human beings and livestock are endangered by the continuing extraordinary rains never witnessed before in recent history. The rainfall so far exceeds 700 percent the normal annual rainfall in the district.”

Khalif’s statement came a few days after Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) said the floods were causing the sanitary system in Wajir to collapse.

“A large part of the town, which has a population of 40,000, is flooded and wells are contaminated with faecal pollution. There is no working latrine system and the sanitary conditions pose a high risk of cholera,” MSF said in a statement last week.

It said the nine villages surrounding the town had all been affected and that communities were gathered in pockets on high ground. “Worst hit is Dabashjiboula, where 500 people have been surrounded by water for the last three weeks and have nothing,” MSF disclosed.

Khalif urged the government to supply military aircraft to transport commercial and famine-relief food as well as medicines to the district immediately to save lives and forestall a disaster.

A statement from the Belgian embassy here said Monday that Brussels had provided two C-130 Hercule planes to carry out relief operations in conjunction with the World Food Programme (WFP) in the Coast, Eastern and Northeast provinces.

It said the planes, due to arrive this week, will operate from Mombasa during the programme, which is expected to last at least one month and cover the flood-hit districts of Tana River, Moyale, Marsabit, Mandera and Garissa in the northeast and Mombasa, Malindi and Lamu along the coast.

The flooding along the River Tana, the longest in Kenya, erupted after the river burst its banks, affecting 50,000 people, of whom 25,000 (5,000 families) have been displaced.

Local officials said over 1,000 houses were half submerged in water, while hundreds more were swept away in Garissa district.

To alleviate the situation, hundreds of Moslems this week held prayers all over the country for the displaced families in flood- hit areas.

In River Tana District, the prayers were held by Imam Maalim Said. He said only prayers could change the situation and alleviate the suffering of the affected persons.

The rains, expected to continue into next year, according to the meteorological department of Kenya, have also affected neighbouring Somalia and Sudan.

They are associated with the El Nino phenomenon, a warming of the eastern Tropical Pacific that occurs every few years and disrupts the weather patterns of the region.