Flood victim numbers surge, more assistance required-Wajir Governor says.
By Asal Media Reporter
Wajir Governor Ahmed Abdullahi on Wednesday called on partners and stakeholders to join his administration in supporting communities affected by flush floods saying that so far 10,000 households have been affected.
Speaking when he joined other guests in discussing the flood crisis affecting the region during the Citizen TV day break show ,Abdullahi said that the numbers are likely to go up since it was still raining heavily in the entire county.
The county continue to receive heavy rains which have resulted in flash floods. Northeastern have been the most affected.
He said lack of roads further complicated things since the relief items cannot get to towns like Buna in Wajir North meaning that they can only be helped by air.
He said that there were many settlements along that road and the international ring roads to the Ethiopia side that would have come in handy during such times was also cut off.
“In terms of access by roads to most of our settlements I can tell you probably about 50 percent of the county have been affected one way of the other. The only tarmac road there is which is the road between Garissa and Modogashe has been cut off. This county has about 700 or so settlements and about half of those have been affected in one way or the other,” he said.
Abdullahi also took issue with the mixed messaging which he said had contributed to the confusion which saw the country caught flat footed.
“The met department miss advising the president that there will be no more Elnino but just enhanced rains. Which the president then voiced. And then what followed is that everyone slept on the job and we got caught up,” he said.
“So yes the mixed messaging could have well affected our preparedness. I think we should have still prepared for the worst. I wouldn’t really know what advised them to give the mixed signals because this in a big way affected the coordination. Because even the coordination meetings that we were having with the Deputy President then stopped until the other one that you saw the other day.
Dr Ahmed Idris ,the Kenya red cross Secretary General disclosed that the latest statistics from the national disaster operation center show that 24,000 households have been displaced admitting that the organization was stretched due to the growing numbers of those in need of assistance.
He was however quick to add they will ‘stand up to the occasion and help to deliver aid and assistance to the affected population.
He called for a coordinated approach as is currently the case noting that this will see responsibilities shared and implementation spot on saying that the biggest challenge that they are currently facing was getting the relief items to areas within Wajir and Mandera Counties singling out Elwak, Diff and Buna as the most affected.
“What we are witnessing the variations movements from one extreme emergency to another is really the problem of precipitations variability as a result of climate change. We are likely to continue witnessing this,it is no going to be the end of it. We need to therefore as a country continue preparing from a policy perspective and institutional design perspective how to systematically be responding to that,” he said.
