Agony of Tana River families grappling with flooded homesteads

More than 10,000 families in Tana River have endured multiple tragedies due to recent floods.

Their homes were submerged, and their property was destroyed twice.

Initially, they were displaced by the El Niño rains in December, forcing them to move to camps.

This month, another flood struck, causing even more losses.

After the December rains, the farmers, still in IDP camps, went to the farm and were anticipating a bumper harvest in a month. Only for the rains to destroy their crops once again.

They are now worried they might suffer hunger and famine when the rains are gone.

Journalists accompanied by a team of Kenya Red Cross Society officials led by Coast Regional Coordinator of Operations and Projects Mohamed Rajab toured a section of the worst-hit villages that were completely submerged and came face-to-face with the losses.

Rajab said Tana River is the worst hit, as they experienced flooding before it rained.

He said so far, 38,000 families have been affected by floods, with 10,500 completely displaced, adding that there is a need for the government to help them build houses on higher grounds to avoid the perennial displacement.

“We have two key roads that have been cut off during this March-April rains—Gamba along Garsen-Lamu Road and Madogo Road—meaning Lamu people will have difficulties accessing food,” he said.

Currently, he said the victims urgently need  non-food items such as mosquito nets, blankets, mattresses, food, medical services and shelter as the situation is worse.

“As Kenya Red Cross, we have distributed non-food items to over 1,600 families and food to over 3,600 families. We have 88 camps in Tana River and we are trying to do hygiene promotion in these camps,” he said.

At Bandi village, all the houses were submerged and the area can only be accessed by boat as the water levels are deep.

All families from Bandi village relocated to Roadblock area and have vowed not to return to their flooded homes due to the perennial costs of reconstruction and losses and want the government to help them construct permanent houses.

In Dumi area, where there are two villages Dumi A and B, access was a challenge due to the nature of floods, as water was all over.

However, at Dumi A village, journalists found only one man, Mohamed Dullo, who remained behind after family relocated to Garsen High School IDP camp just to secure his mango harvest.

The over eight tonnes of mangoes are stored in a container, adding that many of them went bad and will be forced to sell them at a throw away price, as that was his family’s only hope after all the crops in the farm were destroyed.

His house was completely submerged and if he returned, which he vowed never to, he would have to reconstruct it.

“Last season we were affected by these floods, but this time it was worse; they came very fast and we lost property and livestock.  We were already in safe grounds but we had planted crops which were destroyed,” he said.

After the loss of crops, Dullo said their only hope was in mangoes, which did well but due to the floods, most of them have gone bad and getting them to the market was a major challenge.

“To date, the residents here have not returned and are camping at Garsen High School, the situation is bad,” he said.

Currently, he said mangoes are being sold at Sh7 down from the normal Sh9 or Sh10.

While at Dumi A, we found Mohamed Galgalo a father of eight children, who offered to take us to his village, which is completely inaccessible.

At his village, he showed us his three bedroom apartment house, which was completely destroyed by the disaster. The entire village is still partly submerged, and in another area, its very muddy with cow dung on top.

Houses are in a bad state, toilets are floating, and mosques and boreholes are submerged too.

“We had tried to do farming, but the food was destroyed, and half of the animals were swept away by floods,” he said.

Galgalo said they are fed up with the perennial disaster as it is expensive to relocate to safer grounds during floods and return later.

“We are tired of this; what we need is a permanent safe area for us to stay in so that we can live in this area for farming and rearing our livestock,” he said.

Nafthali Ngomango from Hewani village said they urgently need support to get relief food and drugs as the situation is worsening each day and their village is completely flooded.