More than 100,000 people are struggling in Somalia’s cyclone-hit
northeastern Puntland region, aid agencies warned Friday, saying
floodwaters had wiped out the livestock two-thirds of the people survive
on.
A joint statement by 12 agencies — including Somali organisations as
well as international ones such as CARE International, Oxfam, Save the
Children, Refugees International and World Vision — said that people are
“in dire need of food, clean drinking water and shelter”.
“For the pastoralist communities, the loss of their livestock could
lead to an even greater number of people dying,” said Degan Ali, from
Somali agency Adeso. “Livestock is the basis of the local economy and
their only means of survival.”
The local government in the semi-autonomous region has said that as
many as 300 people were feared to have been killed in the aftermath of
the storm, but United Nations estimates later said that 80 were so far
confirmed dead.
Aid agencies, the United Nations and local authorities are supplying
food and medical supplies, but the recovery of communities struggling
after decades of unrest — and still recovering from extreme drought last
year — will take considerable time, the agencies cautioned.
“Families have lost their homes and possessions as floods damaged
entire villages, roads and fishing boats,” the statement read, also
warning of the risk of waterborne diseases.
Infamous pirate hotspots such as the port of Eyl — from where Somali
gunmen have launched attacks far out into the Indian Ocean — are some of
the worst affected places.
Somalia has been riven by civil war since the collapse of the central government in 1991.
Impoverished Puntland, which forms the tip of the Horn of Africa, has
its own government, but unlike neighbouring Somaliland, it has not
declared independence from Somalia.
Source: AFP
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