Floods endangering food security

Flooding in the Juba and Shabelle river basins of southern Somalia are endangering the food security of the populations living there, a watchdog organisation has warned. The EU and FAO's Food Security Assessment Unit (FSAU) said in its May report that the worst-affected areas were in the Jowhar district of Middle Shabelle Region, the districts of Qoryoley and Kurtunwaarey in Lower Shabelle, and Merka. The flooding follows heavy rains in the Ethiopian highlands and Somalia in the last few weeks. The situation has been exacerbated by the fact that local farmers are cutting into river embankments in order to irrigate their land, but instead they increase the flood risk, the report said. A Somali agronomist told IRIN that since the collapse of the Somali government in 1991, no-one has been able to de-silt the riverbeds or manage the sluice gates on the rivers or adjoining canals, which contributes to the seasonal flooding. The FSAU report said that "comprehensive maintenance of river banks and the de-silting of riverbeds would go some way to reduce the impact of small-scale localised and destructive floods".