Tuesday June 1, 2021
FILE PHOTO: Women walk through waist-deep floodwater in a street of Mogadishu on after homes were inundated in Somalia’s capital following heavy overnight rainfall. (Photo by MOHAMED ABDIWAHAB / AFP)
The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) said Monday it had distributed food and non-food relief items to flood-hit vulnerable people in Jowhar town in south Somalia’s Middle Shabelle region after heavy rains washed away their homes and destroyed crops and livestock.
Maow Addow, the community-based liaison officer for AMISOM, said in a statement issued in Mogadishu that the relief items, including rice, vegetable oil, sugar, blankets, plastic sheets, mosquito nets and buckets have been distributed to more than 900 displaced families living in the areas most affected by the recent flooding.
In recent weeks, persistent heavy rains flooded the Shabelle River, leaving hundreds of people stranded in the areas prone to water-borne diseases and mosquitoes.
Ahmed Meyre Makaran, governor of Middle Shabelle region, said the donation would go a long way to address the immediate humanitarian emergency at a time when people are still dealing with the aftermath of a locust infestation from 2020 which destroyed crops and created food insecurity.