Crocs Kill 9 as Floods Wreak Havoc

Crocodiles have killed at least nine people in Somalia, where devastating floods have displaced at least 50,000 others, bringing the death toll to over 50 in the lawless African nation, elders and witnesses said Sunday.

The nine died in Buulo Barte district in the central Hiraan region, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) north the capital Mogadishu in past three days, they said.

Survivors in other parts of the district were still clinging to trees in desperate attempts to avoid being eaten, local elder Ali Hassan Osmail told AFP.

"We are experiencing the worst crisis in this region, in addition to the evacuation and loss of property, people are expressing concerns over crocodiles that threaten their lives," Osmail added.

"At least nine people have been killed by crocodiles floating all over the floodwater in the past three days and the number could rise because the problems still persist," he added.

Witnesses and local officials have told AFP the deaths bring the toll to at least 52 killed in Somalia in raging flood waters since late October when torrential downpours first caused rivers to burst their banks.

The bulk of the dead were in the Middle and Lower Juba, Lower Shabelle, Gedo and Hiraan regions, all controlled by a powerful Islamic movement that seized Mogadishu in June and now hold almost all of southern and central Somalia, they said.

The United Nations said the current, unusually heavy seasonal rains were threatening Somalia with its worst floods in 50 years while the impoverished Horn of Africa country teeters on the brink of all-out war.

In addition, tens of thousands hectares of farmlands have been destroyed by the floods, which follow a prolonged drought that ravaged the entire eastern Africa region, causing a humanitarian disaster.

Relief efforts have been hampered by flooded roads and the military build-up and complicated further by a ban on flights to and from Somalia imposed by neighboring Kenya this week for security reasons, according the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Somalia, a nation of about 10 million people, has lacked a functioning central authority and any disaster response mechanisms since being plunged into anarchy after the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

The rise of the Islamists poses a serious challenge to the two-year-old transitional government that has been riddled with infighting and unable to assert control in much of the nation. - Sapa-AFP 15Nov06