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Rivers turn to dust as drought bites Somalia

– ‘This is a nightmare’ –

“All the villages in the regions rely on water from the river to survive, there are very few wells here and I don’t think life is possible without the flow of water of the Shabelle River,” said Mohamed Idle, an elder in Jowhar district, of the more than a 1,000 kilometre long river that begins in Ethiopia’s highlands.

“This is a nightmare. I never thought of this river running dry, I can see the riverbed and children playing,” said Abdulahi Mursal, another resident. “People will soon start leaving here.”

Floods and failed rains caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon have sparked a dramatic rise in the number of people going hungry in large parts of Africa, including in arid regions of the Horn of Africa.

Northern Somali areas, including self-declared independent Somaliland along the Gulf of Aden and semi-autonomous Puntland, are especially hard hit, with some 385,000 people in dire need of food aid, according to the UN, with that figure feared to quadruple without help.

“Severe drought exacerbated by El Nino conditions has hit parts of Puntland and Somaliland, affecting hundreds of thousands of people,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned in latest report.

“A further 1.3 million people risk slipping into acute food insecurity if they do not receive assistance… or nearly 40 percent of the 4.6 million people living in Puntland and Somaliland.”

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