MONDAY, 2.30PM
TORRENTIAL rains in northern Kenya have cut off communication links between towns in most parts of north-eastern and eastern provinces. The government has declared a disaster zone in the area, where at least ten people have been reported drowned, families have been forced to flee and their houses have been destroyed.
Information from the Moyale area, on the Ethiopian border, is patchy, because roads and bridges have been washed away. “We have been completely cut off from the rest of the country. Vehicles taking food and medicine to the people have been stuck as the rains continue,” said a police officer in Wajir.
No vehicles have arrived in or left the town since the rains began three weeks ago. An army base on the Kenya-Somalia border is having its rations airlifed in. Livestock, including camels, are reported to have been drowned.
The floods have come soon after the devastating floods that hit the Kenyan coastal region, leaving in their wake, death to humans and destruction of property.