By Mustafa Haji Abdinur
Mogadishu - Raging flood waters overnight swept away and killed at least nine people, including five sleeping children, as a third week of heavy rains pounded southern Somalia, bringing the death toll to at least 89, officials said on Friday.
With no end in sight to the unusually heavy seasonal rains that have wrought further misery in a country already on the brink of war, local officials said new overnight floods had hit the south.
The children were killed when their homes in villages near the provincial town of Jowhar, about 90km north of Mogadishu, were washed away by waters from rivers that burst their banks, they said.
"Five children died after heavy floods swept their homes away while they were sleeping," said Ibrahim Nur Osman, the security commander for Somalia's powerful Islamist movement in Middle Shabelle region where Jowhar is situated.
Meanwhile, rescuers recovered the bodies of four people buried in the mud around Mustaqbal village in Lower Shabelle region, where tens of thousands are facing acute food shortages.
"Four bodies, one of them an elderly woman, have been discovered dead around Mustaqbal in the mud," said Garad Abukar Mohamed, the secretary for the local Islamic administration.
"The water level is rising all the time and thousands of people are trapped in flood-hit areas that nobody can reach," he said, adding that the death toll would likely rise as food stocks had been destroyed.
Scores of survivors were clinging to trees, grieving for the loss of their loved ones and property as well as trying to avoid being eaten by crocodiles unleashed by the flooding of the Shabelle and Jubba rivers, residents said.
At least 13 of the flood fatalities are known to have been devoured by the crocodiles, which have been on a feeding frenzy in Beledweyne, further north of Jowhar, according to locals.
"Casualties are increasing day-by-day," Osman told AFP. "People are getting killed, others injured, while others are being evacuated. Everybody is grieving from treetops where they have escaped."
The village of Bulo-Warey, where the children died overnight Thursday, was completely inundated, with the surviving residents fleeing as best they could, an official said.
"I tell you that none of the affected people is in the village because the whole place is covered by water," said Osman Adan Ibrahim, a local Islamist representative.
The floods have compounded difficulties for Somalis already on edge fearing an outbreak of all-out war between the Islamists and the country's weak transitional government that many believe could spark a regional conflict.
Nearly one million Somalis are estimated to be affected by the flooding, of which at least 336 000 have been forced from their homes, according to the United Nations.
Health officials have also sounded the alarm for outbreaks of waterborne disease, particularly cholera, which has already been confirmed in two areas.
"There are fears of outbreaks of diseases, which will kill many people if they are not evacuated and given help very soon," added Mohamed, who is among a teams of rescuers in Middle Shabelle.
The rains have destroyed farmlands, disrupted food supplies, cut off village and washed away roads, complicating the delivery of aid to the most vulnerable and impoverished in remote areas. - Sapa-AFP