At least 20 people have died in northern Somalia after an outbreak of diarrhoea, sparked by heavy flooding, bringing the death toll to 116, the United Nations said on Wednesday.
Amid fears of an all-out war between the powerful Islamic movement and the government, backed by Ethiopian forces, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) said the deaths were reported in the north-eastern semi-autonomous region of Puntland.
Puntland’s health ministry ”has announced an increase of cases of acute diarrhoea, with 20 persons reported dead out of a total affected population of 975”, Ocha said in a statement released here.
”The condition is becoming more widespread, with 70 cases reported in Galkayo [in central Somalia] and 40 reported in Bossaso,” said a statement released in Nairobi.
The new casualties bring the death toll to 96 since torrential rains started pounding the region in October, mainly flooding the main Shabelle and Juba rivers that have their source at the Ethiopian highlands.
About 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 UN.
As the UN announced plans to launch a $17-million aid appeal for Somalia, it warned that conflict between Somalia’s powerful Islamist movement and weak Ethiopian-backed government, now on the brink of war, would derail critical aid operations.
”Any outbreak of conflict resulting from a deterioration in the present political stand-off would have a disastrous impact on the ability of communities to cope with worsening floods, exacerbate already precarious food security and livelihoods conditions, and severely disable all flood response and other life-saving operations,” a UN statement said.
Somalia, a nation of about 10-million people, has lacked a functioning central authority and any disaster-response mechanisms since being plunged into anarchy after the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. — Sapa-AFP