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28 people have been reported dead in the Somali region of Ethiopia as a result of recent heavy rainfall, leading to widespread flooding.
According to DW Amharic, which cited the region’s Disaster Prevention and Preparedness office, tens of thousands have been displaced. The impact has been particularly severe in eight out of the region’s eleven zones. 33 districts and more than 140 localities have been affected, resulting in the displacement of over 46,000 people.
Bashir Arab, Team Leader of the Somali region’s Disaster Prevention office, informed DW Amharic that around 23,000 households have been displaced. At the time of reporting, the confirmed death toll stood at 28. Concerns persist regarding the likelihood of continued heavy rainfall in the upcoming days, based on forecasts from Ethiopia’s Meteorology Center.
The region’s disaster prevention agency said rescue operations are underway in the eight zones affected by the heavy rain.
In response to the crisis, Mustafa Mohammed, the region’s president, visited the impacted areas and the displaced individuals. Shafi, a resident from one of the affected areas, informed DW Amharic that many houses are flooded. Besides the loss of human lives, the flooding has also caused substantial damage to property and infrastructure.
Earlier this month, a similar incident led to the death of at least 20 individuals in the region. The region had been grappling with a prolonged drought, resulting in significant losses of hundreds of thousands of cattle. It is after a long time that the region received a heavy rainfall.
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This flooding disaster is happening in the 3 countries of Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia. In Ethiopia, the deadly disaster is happening both in Somali and Oromia regions. There is also the opposite side of flooding; serious drought has been taking place in some localities in the Amhara region where scores have died from starvation already. Not only drought and flooding, epidemic diseases like malaria, dengue and typhoid are also killing scores of people in Ethiopia. All these calamities are taking place in our old country on top of deadly stupid wars started by totally stupid individuals that have already killed more than a million people and still killing hundreds.
We and all of us in the Diaspora are extremely fortunate enough to live thousands of miles away from such deadly calamities. But this opportunity should come with responsibility and expectations. We should abstain from all acts that will make the dire situation back in the old country getting worse. We should use the last spare penny we have in our pocket to help those noble people who are thrown into the calamities at no choice of their own. It seems Mother Nature and wicked humans are ganging up on them. We will be blessed for that! Let’s go!!!
Ethiopia is fortunate to have good individuals like you, Ittu Aba Farda, but evil men like Yonas Biru and Ethio 360 are to blame for all the terrible violence and displacement that humans have brought about.
The youth of that country does not seem to get a break it deserves from being hoodwinked into violent forms of struggle since 1974. First it was by leftist extremists in which more than 3 million citizens perished including those who succumbed to a deadly famine in 1984-85. That followed by a series of deadly protests and conflicts that took the lives of more than a million people thru 2022. The carnage is still raging. It does not seem we have learned from the deaths and destruction triggered and waged by conniving individuals and the groups they created. The saddening and irritating about it is even those who are well educated among us here and over there don’t seem to draw a lesson or two from the destructive confrontational politics. They brag about their PhD’s and Masters dangling in our faces when they move their poisonous jaws with ‘Orommumaa’ this, ‘Neftegna’ and ‘Woyane’ that. They do this knowing very well that using these terms as pejoratives or to wholesale criminalize others can be provocative. They know very well that in any society there are groups of ordinary people who don’t possess the sophistication to look through what they hear and read correctly. They know or I should say, they should have known that. It just saddens me and makes me feel helpless.
Here is my personal conviction. No matter how we look at it, the need and the desire of that Oromo individual from Itu clan are in nature the same as the one of that Amhara, Afar, Somali, Tigre or any other ethnic group. That Amhara farmer or urban dweller is not looking for a black milk from a blue cow. Nor any other farmer or urban dweller from any ethnic group. All of they want is the same at the core. They yearn for peace, stability and want to live in harmony.
Thank you keep on telling them.
As stated, the two flooding moments in a span of weeks must serve as a “teaching moment” for authorities in these areas, instead of merely focusing on providing assistance for those currently affected by these floods events, it is important to take notes where the flood is forming and where the water route are and where the water is accumulating (final destinations).
Planning and developing future flood preventive methodology and digging ditches (waterways) to safely manage the water flow as well as preparing a water-harvesting man made lakes along the way to provide water-source for nearby settlements would alleviate their dry-season water needs to all the communities in those areas.
Similar flood happned in Afar region last year or a year before, not sure if any future preventive & flood management structure were built. My recollection is that all the activities at the time were focused on collecting donations & providing assistance for the affected population, it would be great if some further preventive work was done to manage future floodings. Otherwise these floods & droughts would remain a yearly occurrences…
By developing floods & drought management departments at our regional Universities that focus on research to develop flood management & preventive practices and water-harvesting techniques, floods would become a well managed resource rather than a source of danger, destruction and suffering when they happen.
We need to learn how to “harness” nature’s gifts, whether they are delivered in an overwhelming manner, or those that come gradually.
If so, tropical winter floods ( like the snow fall in the northern hemisphere) would be a blessing if managed & used to eradicate “drought” conditions such as the one we read about which occurred in the Bale area in the last few years.
Ethiopia ( Africa) is blessed with natural resources” such as in a form of “flood” but we have to learn to harness them & put them to good use, instead of looking at them as a natural ‘disaster’, only laziness is making them dubbed “disasters”.
“13 months of sunshine” naturally makes people lazy, the development in the Northern hemisphere primarily came from the severity of the winter conditions that made or forced people to innovate to survive.
Imagine the conditions in the North 200, 150, 100 years ago, where comfort and conveniences we take for granted today weren’t available; very harsh indeed.
Be well.