How one woman woke up to a nightmare as flood waters poured into family home
Glimmer of hope as food arrives for families seeking shelter in Somali Region of Ethiopia
My name is Ahmed Ibrahim and I am a Field Monitoring Assistant from the World Food Programme (WFP) office in Gode district, Ethiopia. Since mid-April, heavy rainfall and flash floods have washed away livestock, homes and public buildings in the Somali Region, affecting over 165,000 people along the Shabelle river. My role includes visiting some of the families forced from their homes and seeing what support WFP can offer. Here’s one of the stories I was told.
Like many people in Ranranle village that morning, Agan Soyan Hassan was sleeping when the River Shabelle burst its banks and flood water engulfed her home.
She awoke to the shouts of neighbours fleeing the village, and to see water soaking the mats on her floor.
She rounded up her six children — the youngest of whom is 3 — and with the help of 2 neighbours spent the next four hours wading through water to reach higher ground.
“Families were sheltering under makeshift structures of sticks and ragged clothes.”
She finally found refuge but the lack of trees meant no shelter from the rains — while there was also little space to set up a temporary home.
I visited the makeshift settlement after three weeks of floods. Families were sheltering under flimsy structures of sticks and ragged clothes, with the better ones covered in plastic sheeting.
I talked with Agan near her temporary shelter, her children sat around us. Nearby, pounded maize supplied by WFP was spread out and drying on a cloth. Soon it would be hand-ground and cooked as a pancake, known locally as Soor.
Agan explained how her tukul [a cone-shaped mud hut] had collapsed, and her cow, eight goats and ten hens had been drowned. She was left with six cows and two hens, whom neighbours had helped move to higher ground. Agan’s food supplies were also lost, and her children are now missing school.
She and her children had relied on the kindness of relatives and neighbours for food, a plastic sheet for shelter, and a few items such as a cooking pot, a kettle and two glasses for drinking tea.
“When I saw first WFP trucks arriving, there was a sigh of relief — I was very happy.”
She had been previously receiving food from WFP each month because of recurrent drought in the region. In recent days she had received food including cereals, pulses and vegetable oil.
“WFP food assistance is a glimmer of hope,” said Agan. “When first I saw WFP trucks arriving, there was a sigh of relief — I was very happy. I knew that my main need would at least be covered, and started thinking of shelter and my other basic needs.”
It had taken two weeks for the food to get through, as many roads are flooded or even collapsed. Some WFP trucks have become stuck, and reaching communities remains a major challenge. Despite this, WFP still delivered food with a fleet of trucks and has so far reached over 56,000 people.
We are working with partners including the Government of Ethiopia and UNICEF, the World Health Organization and local NGOs to do road assessments and identify alternative routes where possible. This kind of partnership approach and pooling of skills, resources and local knowledge is really important to all of us when faced with such challenging conditions.
We will keep trying, so we can help more people like Agan and their families. That is our priority and that is what motivates us at WFP every day.
Additional reporting — Paul Anthem
