KISUMU, Kenya, May 23 – Several families have been displaced by raging floods in Nyando Sub County as western region continues to receive rains.
The most affected area is Ayweyo in Awasi Onjiko ward, with locals asking for help to have the water freed into Lake Victoria.
A local Member of County Assembly Maurice Ngeta says his people are suffering and in dire need.
Ngeta says the annual suffering of his people now needs a permanent solution.
“We only talk during the rainy season and go mum after the flood water slips away, it’s time a solution is found,” he said.
Locals decried lack of enough drainages along the Kisumu Kisii road, thus retaining flood water for weeks during the rainy season.
Ngeta appealed for emergency services from governments and well-wishers to the affected families, he estimated to be around 300.
Benard Okwanyo, says the two weeks rainfall in the area has affected their movements.
“Our children are not going to school, our livestock too are in dire need of food,” he said.
Most families are camping by the roadside, with hope the flood water will subside to allow them back to their houses.
Okwanyo says feeder streams in the area have no culverts and once they overflow, it makes movements very difficult.
The area MCA says there is need for dykes along the smaller streams to avert flooding.
Already, the Lake Basin Development Authority (LBDA) has launched the construction of a 50 kilometres dyke along River Nyando.
Mud walled houses are also at risk of collapsing in the villages now marooned under water.
Janet Aoko, a mother of four, says they have been unable to cook as flood water struck this morning.
Mostly, the area is affected by flush water from the upstream in the neighboring Kericho County.
Aoko says the government must come to their aid to save them from the enduring sufferings.
“It is too much for us, when there is a change in the weather patterns, we are saddened by the outcome,” she said.
Recently, Kenya Red Cross Society warned of more rains in the region as families got displaced in both Kisumu and Homa Bay Counties.
