Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Food and medical supplies have begun to arrive in Somalia's
northeastern Puntland region, badly hit by a ferocious storm and
flooding, the United Nations has said.
The UN World Food Programme has sent 340 tons of food, enough for
4,000 households for a month, while Puntland's government has sent 32
trucks of supplies.
The local government in the semi-autonomous region has said as many
as 300 people were feared to have been killed in the aftermath of the
storm, but the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
said in an update released late Monday that 80 were so far confirmed
dead.
"From 650 medical consultations conducted so far, information
gathered confirms 80 reported deaths, mostly of children and the elderly
who were most vulnerable to hypothermia and exposure," UNOCHA said.
However, livestock on which the majority of rural population depend has been badly hit.
"Thousands of livestock are reported dead as a consequence of icy
rain... anecdotal evidence suggests a less than 10 percent survival rate
for livestock in the hardest hit areas," the report added.
Infamous pirate hotspots such as the port of Eyl – from where Somali
gunmen have launched attacks far out into the Indian Ocean – are some of
the worst affected.
Coastal destruction caused by a 2004 tsunami was widely seen as being
one trigger for a surge in attacks off Somalia, peaking in January 2011
when the pirates held 736 hostages and 32 boats.
However, the rate of attacks has tumbled in the past two years,
prompted partly by the posting of armed guards on boats and navy
patrols.
Ethiopia and Djibouti, both neighbors of Somalia, have also sent aid shipments.
Somalia has been riven by civil war since the collapse of the central government in 1991.
Impoverished Puntland, which forms the tip of the Horn of Africa, has
its own government, although unlike neighboring Somaliland, it has not
declared independence from Somalia.