Perils of Somali Flood: Hunger and Beasts

The people here are surrounded by floodwaters that have drowned their animals, submerged their crops and swept away their homes. They are slowly starving, unable to sustain themselves on unripe fruit and filthy water.


At the faintest hum of an outboard engine, some 200 villagers, essentially the entire mobile population of Yagloo, run to the banks of the swollen Shabelle River with empty baskets and expectant eyes, hoping for powdered milk, a few handfuls of grain, some malaria pills, anything.

"You! You! You!" they yelled at a passing boat, which unfortunately on this Tuesday morning was carrying only journalists. "Don't forget us."

They held up mud-streaked palms and pointed to a darkening sky. More rain was on its way.

The floods here are yet another installment of a nation in crisis. At a time when Somalia seems inexorably close to an all-out war with Ethiopia, with a destructive potential that could dwarf the countless deaths from the last 15 years of anarchy, a deluge has arrived, plunging Somalia's breadbasket underwater, creating the conditions for an extended famine and taking the area's woes to a whole new level.

from the NY Times