KENYA: The United Nations is to begin airlifting food to more than a million people cut off by severe flooding in northern Kenya and Somalia.
Days of heavy rain have brought misery to a chunk of the Horn of Africa already reeling from drought. Programmes to help nomads who have lost their herds of cattle adapt to a settled life have been simply washed away.
Burkard Oberle, Kenya country director of the UN's World Food Programme, said: "The hundreds of thousands of people driven from their homes in both Somalia and Kenya by the floods need our help right now. The floods knocked out bridges and have made many roads impassable, so we urgently need funding for this operation to get the planes and the helicopters in the air."
The rainy season is due to last for another month and yesterday the Kenyan government said it would declare a state of emergency if the heavy downpours did not ease. At least 28 people have been killed by three weeks of rain, with many more missing.
Some 10,000 people were forced from their homes when the River Tana broke its banks and swept through villages and farmland.
Meanwhile, 80,000 Somali refugees in the north-east of Kenya have been particularly affected. Thousands of latrines have flooded in one camp close to Dadaab, raising fears of a cholera outbreak. Simple shelters of sticks and plastic sheeting have been destroyed.
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has started airlifting tarpaulins, health kits and tonnes of fuel in order to help camp residents move to higher ground.
The picture in Somalia is even worse, say aid workers. More than a decade without any functioning central government means the country lacks the ability to respond to emergencies.
The country's biggest rivers, the Juba and Shabeele, have burst their banks, affecting 1.8 million people. Survivors of the rains report another threat - crocodiles swept into villages by the floodwater. Residents of villages to the north of the capital Mogadishu say nine people have been snatched by crocodiles in recent days.
Peter Goossens, WFP country director for Somalia, said air transport was the only way to reach people in need. "Even without the floods, Somalia is one of the most difficult places to deliver assistance in the world."