Heavy rains leave 300 families homeless in Sanaag region

Heavy rainfall has lashed the Sanaag region of the self-declared republic of Somaliland destroying the homes of some 300 families who have been receiving help from the local authorities, an official said on Tuesday.

A mission from the Somaliland administration had been to the affected area to assess the extent of the problem caused by three days of torrential rains that also made many roads impassable, Somaliland's Information Minister Abdillahi Duale told IRIN by telephone from the capital, Hargeisa.

Sanaag is one of the northern Somalia regions that had been ravaged by a prolonged drought, which caused the deaths of large numbers of livestock and left hundreds of thousands of people in desperate need for food aid.

Authorities in Somaliland, northwest Somalia and the neighboring, self-declared autonomous region of Puntland in the northeast, had declared a drought emergency in the northern territories and appealed for international assistance.