KENYA: Aid reaches thousands displaced by flash floods
27 Oct 2006 14:09:10 GMT
Source: IRIN


ISIOLO, 27 October (IRIN) - The Kenya Red Cross said on Friday it was spearheading relief efforts for thousands of people displaced by flash floods, which also claimed eight lives in the past three days in Isiolo District, Eastern Province.

"Our priority is people who lost everything," Abdikadir Ali, the secretary of the Isiolo branch of the Kenya Red Cross, said.

He said the floods destroyed at least 355 homes, with the affected families losing all their household goods, food, clothes, cooking utensils, bedding and furniture.

Shukri Mohamed, one of the displaced now living a camp in the Alharamain centre at Kambi Garba, two kilometres from Isiolo town, said: "I lost everything; we have been given food but nothing to cover our children with or cook the food. We need firewood or charcoal to cook and keep us warm. We also need mosquito nets, drugs and mattresses."

He was preparing to take his children to the Isiolo District Hospital after they developed pneumonia from sleeping on the floor without any bedding.

The floods washed away Mohamed's two-room mud-walled home.

Ali said the worst-affected 1,541 people were receiving help at temporary camps in Alfalah, Alharamain and at the Catholic Parish Centre.

"The others whose houses were damaged but who managed to recover a few items are also being assisted although some of them have returned to their homes and others are staying with friends and relatives," he said.

Ali added that the displaced had so far received food, blankets and tents donated by the government and the Kenya Red Cross. The Isiolo County Council and the Isiolo Catholic Diocese had donated 500,000 Kenya shillings (US$6,900).

An initial assessment by humanitarian workers indicated that the floods also displaced at least 5,000 residents of Kulamawe, Bullapesa, BullaArera, Juakali, Kambiodha, Kambibulle, Kabigarbaa and Kabiwacho villages. However, they could not determine the extent of the flood-induced destruction.

However, a councillor in the Isiolo County Council, Mohamed Sheikh, said: "The people affected need urgent assistance; they will never recover unless they get help to rebuild their homes. It is the worst disaster to hit Isiolo."

He added that the displaced were all low-income earners, without reliable sources of income.

Residents of at least eight villages on the outskirts of Isiolo town were left homeless after heavy rains pounded the area in the past week – after two years of severe drought.

Among the dead were a woman and her two children at Kulamawe village, whose home was swept away by the floods as they slept on Wednesday night. Two other people died in similar circumstances at Bullapesa village and three men drowned as they attempted to cross a flooded stream.

Joseph Samal of the Isiolo Catholic Mission expressed concern about possible outbreaks of waterborne diseases and malaria, saying the floods had damaged pit latrines, which could contaminate drinking water, and that those affected were exposed to the malaria-causing mosquitoes as they lacked bed nets.

Mohamed Patel of the Isiolo Recovery Group said the displaced were shocked and traumatised after losing their homes and other property.

"They need counselling, apart from material assistance," he said. "Some took loans to purchase household goods and put up the houses which have been washed away by the floods."

Meanwhile, the local district education office said on Friday that up to 500 pupils had missed school in the past two days after their homes were washed away or destroyed.

na/js/mw

Oh dear. They went 3 years without rain in most parts of Kenya, so I can only imagine the excitement when the rains showed up on time this month, but of course, life never seems to be easy there. If there's no rain, there's no rain for years, and when the drought finally breaks, it rains three year's worth in a few days. So frustrating. Now to the Congo:

Plague or cholera rivals in Congo's election

October 26 2006 at 04:10PM

By Alistair Thomson

Kinshasa - The men battling for Congo's presidency in Sunday's run-off vote have much in common - both are relatively young, were educated abroad and owe their position largely to influential fathers.

To the dismay of diplomats and peacekeepers trying to ensure peaceful elections, both retain sizeable private armies, leading some local papers to describe the historic poll as a choice between "plague or cholera", with neither promising the new peaceful era that so many Congolese crave.

But there the similarities end between dapper President Joseph Kabila, 35, and Jean-Pierre Bemba, 44, who has the build of a heavyweight wrestler and appears equally at ease in a suit or a T-shirt.


Kabila grew up in exile in East Africa after his father, Laurent, fought in a failed Cuban-backed rebellion against late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in the 1960s.

With the backing of Rwanda, Laurent Kabila marched across the huge Congo to topple Mobutu and seize power in 1997, with son Joseph at his side.

After military training in China, Joseph was made chief of his father's army and soon found himself fighting new rebellions also backed by Rwanda and Uganda, in a war that drew in half a dozen foreign armies from across the region.

When a bodyguard shot Laurent Kabila dead in 2001, the ruling elite and their foreign allies ensured Joseph stepped into his father's shoes, handing him the leadership of Africa's third biggest country at just 29 years old.

Bemba's childhood was one of financial privilege. His father Saolona's SCIBE Zaire conglomerate was Congo's biggest company with more than 10 000 employees.

Bemba lost his mother while young and was sent away to boarding school in Belgium at an early age.

Over the years Saolona Bemba drew closer to Mobutu and his kleptocratic regime, and friends say the young Bemba, a qualified pilot who ran an aviation business and a mobile phone firm, became a go-between for the two.

Bemba was able to carve out an unofficial position of considerable influence not only inside Congo, but around the region, especially with Ugandan's President Yoweri Museveni, with whom he became close.

That relationship paid off when Bemba enlisted Museveni's backing for a rebellion in Congo's northeast, even though his father remained in Kinshasa, serving briefly as Laurent Kabila's finance minister.

A 2002 peace deal brought Bemba and other rebel leaders into a transitional power-sharing government, but, like Kabila, Bemba has retained a private armed force.

Bemba's campaign has focused on casting doubt on Kabila's Congolese nationality, and results from a first round of voting in July exposed a deep rift between western Congo, which speaks Bemba's Lingala tongue, and the east where many speak Swahili like Kabila.

A TV debate planned for Thursday was cancelled after the candidates could not agree a format, the populist Bemba demanding a live face-to-face debate while Kabila, who tends to give crowds a wide berth, favoured separate pre-recorded slots.

# Additional reporting by David Lewis.

New Congo leader could inherit poisoned chalice
Fri 27 Oct 2006 17:40:22 BST

By David Lewis

KINSHASA, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Whoever wins Congo's presidential run-off on Sunday will take charge one of the most mineral-rich countries in Africa but also inherit a volatile cocktail of insecurity and social collapse.

The contest between incumbent President Joseph Kabila, the favourite to win, and former rebel Jean-Pierre Bemba is the last step of a process aimed at pacifying Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been at war for most of the last decade.

But alongside control of huge resources, including copper, cobalt, gold and diamonds, the victor faces the daunting challenge of restoring basic social services and reining in thousands of gunmen still outside the government's control.

"I don't expect much from these people," said Dr. Mbwebwe Kabamba, head of surgery at Kinshasa's general hospital, when asked how things would change with Congo's first democratically elected president for 40 years.

"I don't think this will lead to a major social change -- there will be a lot of disappointed people," he said, wandering through the emergency ward, where patients suffering from burns and broken limbs lay in stifling heat.

Under the watchful eye of a $1 billion-a-year U.N. peacekeeping mission and with an international investment of over $500 million sunk into the polls, expectations are high among many less cynical people in the former Belgian colony.

According to Kabamba, during the last week of campaigning Kabila's wife came to the hospital and handed out nearly $30,000 for unpaid hospital bills. But he fears the generosity may be short-lived.

"This is for today but what about tomorrow?" he asked.

Doctors earn between $50 and $100 a month, that is when their salaries are paid at all.

Before even the most routine care, patients have to pay for medicine and equipment. Those unable to pay their bills after treatment are not allowed to leave hospital, often for months.

Congo's 1998-2003 war sparked a humanitarian crisis that has killed over four million people, more than any conflict since the Second World War.

According to aid agencies, most of the deaths were preventable, the result of war-related hunger and disease.



LITTLE CHANGE

Kabila and Bemba's camps have sent teams across the country, often promising change and sometimes even delivering it.

"They need to do elections every year and then maybe something will get done," one U.N. official told Reuters after listing cash handed out for water and electricity projects.

"When it comes to elections, leaders are quite good at getting things done. Its just a shame that most of the time people are forgotten," said the official, who asked not to be named.

Tensions are high before the vote. The announcement of a run-off was greeted in August by three days of fighting between Kabila and Bemba's private armies that killed 30 people.

Kabamba, like many diplomats and ordinary Congolese, fears that the loser may try to contest the result by force and that the country's myriad problems will not be tackled. .

"It is unlikely that whoever wins will ... go and tackle social problems," he said.

Private armies are not the only relic from Congo's war. Thousands of local and foreign rebels continue to roam the east, despite the U.N. peacekeepers and efforts to reform the Congolese army.

"This is not a problem of elections but mentalities," said Phillipe Pili-Pili, a student in the eastern town of Goma.

"We can elect people but if their mentalities remain the same, the problems won't go away," he said.


In addition to the above, I was trying to find the story on a cholera outbreak in the DRC I read about in the Metro this week. Come to find out that that happened over two weeks ago. Since a sad majority of Americans do not have Africa on their radar screen, it seems like most newspapers don't report these types of stories, and when your average newspaper does report on Africa, the news is outdated unless the US is directly involved with an issue there. Notice how we've had constand Madonna/David Banda/Malawi updates, yet so little on the Congolese elections, Kenyan floods, cholera outbreaks, Darfur, etc? It's sad. I would love to talk about the Congo a bit, but maybe another day, as it would take a long time to get everything down. Perhaps once the election is finalized.