More than 40,000 people have been forced from their homes in southern Somalia's Jamame district alone by raging waters from the Juba River, which burst its banks here about 10 days ago, according to aid workers.

The floods have compounded the misery of those living here, already beset by the threat of war between the weak Somali government and powerful Islamists and still recovering from a scorching drought that ended only earlier this year.

Milling around the dozens of huts that make up Arare, village elder Abdi Nur Mohamed Dedud said he was forced to seek shelter after giving up the fight against a relentless surge of water.

"We were working all night," he said. "It was two o'clock in the morning and when we put the sandbags down, the water would rise above them.

"Everybody ran with their children, the water moved faster than people," Dedud said. "It was crisis after crisis. This is worse than the drought."

Abdullah Musa, a father of five children between four- and 10-years-old, said he, too, had fought a losing battle to save his home from the floods and arrived at the camp like most others over the past week.

"The water was coming into our houses," he said, as a short distance away, people waded waist-deep through brown water around submerged trees and houses often visible only by their exposed corrugated iron roofs.

"Everything was washed out," Musa said.

The floods, the man-eating crocodiles they have unleashed and waterborne disease, have killed about 120 people in Somalia since late October when unusally heavy seasonal rains began, according to an AFP survey.

In neighboring Ethiopia and Somalia, also hit hard by the floods, the death toll stands at 80 and 51, bringing the regional total to 251 with hundreds of thousands homeless and more than a million affected in the three countries.

All three were also stricken by the drought, which threatened some 11 million people in the Horn of Africa, and has exacerbated the flood damage because the parched soil was unable to absorb the torrential rains.

Urgent appeals for assistance have gone out from authorities and on Wednesday the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it needed 18 million dollars (14 million euros) to help Somali flood victims over the next three months.

"The humanitarian crisis of the Somali people, exhausted by years of conflict and disaster, is now deepening," OCHA Somalia chief Eric Laroche said in a statement released in Geneva.

The plan amounts to a total of 28.6 million dollars, 10 million of which has already been funded through the Complex Emergency Response Fund (CERF), OCHA said.

Some 350,000 people in the southern and central areas of the country are currently seriously affected by the floods, but this could rise to 900,000 over the coming weeks if persistent rains continue in December, it warned.

In Arare, the World Food Programme warned the situation could get worse.

Although it has not rained here in three days, downpours continue further north, creating the potential for the already swollen Juba River to flood anew, a WFP official said.

"If the floods come down overnight, people may well have their food stocks washed away," WFP spokeswoman Penny Ferguson said.

WFP has sent 1,170 tonnes of food aid to Jamame district and intends to keep up supplies until February.

earlier related report
Red Cross seeks 22 million dollars for Kenya flood relief
Geneva (AFP) Dec 6 - The international Red Cross said on Wednesday it is seeking 21.9 million dollars (16.5 million euros) to assist in flood relief efforts in Kenya. The appeal is in addition to the 7.9 million dollars already sought by the Kenya Red Cross Society, and aims to assist around 563,000 people over the next four months by addressing material damage and health risks.

"The health situation is particularly alarming. There is a high risk of water-borne disease such as cholera because of the hot temperatures coupled with flood waters. Malaria cases have also been reported to be on the rise," the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in a statement.

Approximately 723,000 people have been affected by the floods nationwide and about 60,000 people have been displaced in the coastal, western and eastern provinces of the east African country.

The appeal includes the provision of water purification and sanitation equipment, alongside teams to assist in camps for internally displaced people, the Red Cross said.

Floods have hit many countries in the Horn of Africa and the Red Cross warned that more could yet be to come.

"We are increasingly worried about more floods affecting more countries over the next few days and weeks," said Peter Rees, Head of the Operations Support Department.

"The weather forecast indicates that rains should go on until at least late December. If this is confirmed, then there is a high risk for other countries to be affected, especially in central and southern Africa," he added.

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