Displaced Somalis hit by heavy flooding

Briefing Notes, 7 October 2008

This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at the press briefing, on 7 October 2008, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

Torrential rains and strong winds have hit a string of settlements for hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Somalis between Mogadishu and Afgooye, destroying makeshift shelters and leaving many homeless once again. Ten hours of heavy rain fell overnight Sunday, flooding many shelters and forcing many people to return to their homes in war-torn Mogadishu, despite the dangers.

Many people are once again homeless, although we don't have exact numbers. Some 300,000 displaced people have been staying in flimsy, temporary shelters along the Afgooye corridor, west of Mogadishu. Most of them fled fighting in the capital in 2007 and earlier this year. More than 40,000 have received shelter assistance from UNHCR.

Initial reports indicate that rains and wind mainly struck IDP settlements in the Kurtunwarrey district, near Afgooye, and in Marka district near Mogadishu.

UNHCR is now planning to distribute 3,500 assistance kits for 21,000 people. The kits contain plastic sheeting, blankets, kitchen sets and sleeping mats.

The sudden and heavy flooding is worsening an already dramatic situation in war-torn Somalia, where over 1 million people are displaced. Some 700,000 people fled Mogadishu last year alone. Since the beginning of the year, another 170,000 people were forced to leave the Somali capital, including over 35,000 in recent weeks. People are currently escaping fighting described as the worst since the beginning of the latest insurgency in February 2007.

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The three camps at Dadaab, which were designed for 90,000 people, now have a population of about 250,000 Somali civilians, making it one of the world's largest and most congested refugee sites. UNHCR fears tens of thousands more will arrive throughout 2009 in this remote corner of north-east Kenya as the situation in their troubled country deteriorates further.

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Flood Airdrop in Kenya

Over the weekend, UNHCR with the help of the US military began an emergency airdrop of some 200 tonnes of relief supplies for thousands of refugees badly hit by massive flooding in the Dadaab refugee camps in northern Kenya.

In a spectacular sight, 16 tonnes of plastic sheeting, mosquito nets, tents and blankets, were dropped on each run from the C-130 transport plane onto a site cleared of animals and people. Refugees loaded the supplies on trucks to take to the camps.

Dadaab, a three-camp complex hosting some 160,000 refugees, mainly from Somalia, has been cut off from the world for a month by heavy rains that washed away the road connecting the remote camps to the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Air transport is the only way to get supplies into the camps.

UNHCR has moved 7,000 refugees from Ifo camp, worst affected by the flooding, to Hagadera camp, some 20 km away. A further 7,000 refugees have been moved to higher ground at a new site, called Ifo 2.

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