At least 547,000 people have been affected by recent flooding across Somalia according to the United Nations.
Among them are 370,000 who have been displaced from their homes and livelihood disrupted.
The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said at least 17 people have been killed since the flooding started on Oct. 21.
“Farmland, infrastructure, and roads have been destroyed, and livelihoods disrupted in some of the worst-hit areas,” OCHA said in its latest report.
More 105,000 affected people have been responded to with humanitarian assistance but significant gaps remain in the provision of assistance.
Somali farmers are most affected by a combination of delayed rains and flash floods destroying crops.
The UN said its humanitarian partners are continuing to expand their operations in the Bakool region of Somalia despite a challenging operating environment.
“The worst affected districts are in Beletweyne in Hirshabelle State where 231,000 people have abandoned their inundated homes and Bardheere in Gedo region where 55,000 people have been displaced by the floods,” said the UN agency.
“In Berdale, South West State, an estimated 30,000 people, many of them women and children, have been displaced by flash flooding due to heavy rains. The town, which is 60 km west of Baidoa, is cut off as most roads are impassable,” it said.
The floods were triggered by moderate to heavy Deyr seasonal rains that started early in September in many parts of Somalia and the Ethiopian Highlands, where the Juba and Shabelle rivers originate, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)-Managed Somalia Water and Land Information Management (SWALIM)
