Residents of Dunga in Lake Victoria who were displaced by floods hope to return to their homes following the removal of silt from nearby rivers.
More than 400 households were affected by the perennial flooding which saw them displaced from their homes last year.
Dunga is in Nyalenda B ward.
Most of the affected are living in rented houses in the neighbouring shopping centres after being displaced by the raging waters due to backflow from Lake Victoria.
They remain optimistic that the ongoing desilting of Alewora and Wigwa rivers which feed Lake Victoria by businessman and Kisumu Central parliamentary aspirant Joshua Oron will facilitate free flow of waters into the lake.
Oron, who hired an excavator at Sh 600,000 to desilt the rivers, said residents in Dunga have been massively affected by floods due to backflow after the rivers break their banks.
The rivers, he said, have been filled with huge deposits of silts due to heavy down flow which wash soil into them.
Upon completion, Oron said, those in rented houses should be able to move to their homes.
“We hope that desilting of the rivers will make the rivers have easy access into the lake to enable our people to return to their homes.”
For long, the politician said that raging waters have affected residents living along the shores as they cannot live in their respective homes and incur huge losses every year.
Residents are usually exposed to outbreaks of cholera, malaria and other water borne diseases because of the constant flooding.
“We require a multiagency effort for us to address the floods menace in the region once and for all. Our people cannot live in peace and grow economically because of the floods,” he said.
He called for urgent construction of dykes along the rivers by the national government in collaboration with the county as a permanent solution to the flooding.
Oron pledged to seek permanent solutions to the flooding menace through collaboration with national and county governments, and even globally through his international networks.
Former councillor Romanus Odhoch said the area has experienced flooding since 1963.
He said the kind of backflow witnessed in 2020 occurred in 1963, which affected many people. Most people, he said, were displaced from their homes, with some houses submerged.
(edited by Amol Awuor)
