At least five people, including three children, drowned and thousands were forced to flee their homes early on Tuesday after heavy rains flooded vast swathes of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, residents said.
The deaths were reported in neighbourhoods in northern and southern Mogadishu inundated by the downpours that pounded the city beginning late on Monday, destroying dozens of makeshift houses and market stalls, they said.
Many of those hit by the floods were said to be among an estimated 250 000 internally displaced people who have fled deadly conflict and crippling drought in their home villages in southern Somalia over the past months.
Abdullahi Sheikh Abdi, the chairperson of a displaced people’s camp in northern Mogadishu’s Yakshid district, said three people were swept away and killed by raging waters.
”One child and two elderly people drowned in Yakshid district,” he told Agence France-Presse (AFP), adding that at least eight businesses had been flooded out.
In the Wadigle neighbourhood in southern Mogadishu, businessman Yusuf Abdi Gabaire told AFP that two children were killed.
”Two children died in Wadigle village after they were washed away,” he said.
In addition to the deaths, residents said at least two children were injured when their house collapsed in southern Mogadishu, where water submerged much of the main Bakara market and traders scrambled to salvage their wares.
”My two children were injured last night after our house collapsed,” resident Mariam Abdullahi Ugas said. ”We have nowhere to go because we do not know anybody here.”
Public transport was suspended in most parts of the capital as the floods inundated unpaved roads, buildings and other basic infrastructure.
”We are not working today [Tuesday] because no buses can move,” said Bille Kilas, a public minibus driver. ”We have decided to stay at home because the water is everywhere. Nobody can risk driving in these conditions.”
Residents said the floods were made worse because the city’s drainage system — last rehabilitated in the late 1980s — does not work and people have diverted sewage lines, forcing storm water into residential areas.
”A lot of people have evacuated from their houses and are now sheltering in other parts of Mogadishu,” said Hama Abdullu Hagar Jumale. ”Most of them fled [because] their houses are flooded and could collapse any time from now.”
Similar floods were reported the provincial town of Jowhar, about 90km to the north where roads and bridges were destroyed.
Somalia has been without a functioning central authority and effective disaster management system since the 1991 ousting of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre plunged the country into anarchy.
A semblance of order has been restored in Mogadishu since it was seized by Islamic militia from warlords in June, but the city still lacks the ability to handle floods, fires and other calamities. — Sapa-AFP