“As if it were the end of the world”

“As if it were the end of the world”: sitting on a road, near makeshift shelters, Abdi Hussein recalls the flood that hit his region, in eastern Kenya, causing “the waters to rise again and again , until they swallow up everything.

This 32-year-old man contemplates the rust-colored water as well as the shelters made of plastic tarpaulins and strings, refuges for those who, like him and his wife, have lost everything. The town of Garissa has experienced weather-related disasters before, but never such a catastrophe, its residents say.

This year, the rainy season was intensified by an episode of the El Niño climatic phenomenon which began in mid-2023. Weeks of torrential rains led to deadly floods: 257 people died in this East African country. Entire villages were submerged, roads were cut and nearly 55,000 families were displaced.

The rains flooded five dams, triggering massive overflows of water downstream across Garissa, Tana River and Lamu – a region that is home to more than 1.5 million people.

“We haven’t seen much rain ourselves, but our biggest misfortune is living downstream,” said Mwanajuma Raha, whose house was destroyed by the floods.

At 27 years old, Suleiman Vuya Abdulahi has already been displaced by floods seven times since his birth. But this time was undoubtedly the worst: the young farmer who did not know how to swim had to spend several days on the roof of his house waiting for help.

He had only just recovered from his latest involuntary exile, having been displaced for three months in November. “Ordinary citizens like us, we are really in difficulty,” he told AFP. Some refuse to leave their homes, for fear of looting, preferring to camp on the roof, even if it means swimming to find food.

Garissa is being supplied with great difficulty: the main road has been cut and supplies to this trading town near the Somali border are now done by air or by boat, which has caused a surge in prices.

Small motorboats – originally tourist boats on Lake Naivasha, more than 400 kilometers away – are constantly called upon to transport people and badly needed food.

Sometimes the journey ends tragically: a crowded boat capsized last month. The bodies of seven people, including a schoolgirl, have been found but a dozen people are still missing. Since then, the authorities have ensured at the pier that all passengers wear a life jacket and that the boat is not overloaded.

Mohamed Mansur Ali, a 36-year-old boatman, emphasizes the difficulty of his task: “We barely sleep, we arrive at 6:00 a.m. and finish at 6:00 p.m. But when you could be resting, you are called for a patient who has to go to the hospital.” The crisis that the country is going through could further worsen with the continuation of the rains. In central Kenya, the massive Masinga Dam has already reached “historic” levels.

Furthermore, according to Daud Ahmed Shalle, the regional coordinator of the Kenyan Red Cross, the situation is “disastrous” in the 11 camps that house nearly 6,500 families in Garissa County. “We have a lot of people in the camps whose basic need, or the most urgent need right now, is the lack of food,” he told AFP.

NGOs have called for increased funding to address the crisis and stressed that the populations most affected are those least responsible for extreme weather events linked to climate change.

“The impact of climate change…on people is irreversible and will only get worse, leading to a continued increase in global demand for humanitarian assistance,” said Melaku Yirga, regional director for Africa. East and Southern Africa of the American charity Mercy Corps.