Over 40,000 people have been displaced in the southern Somalia district of Jamame because of flooding caused by heavy rains and the Juba river bursting its banks, AP quoted an U.N. food agency official as saying. Floods hit Jamame in the past 10 days and the U.N. food agency has delivered 1,170 metric tons (about 1,300 tons) of food, said Penny Ferguson, spokeswoman for the agency. The agency will continue providing aid to Jamame until February. Residents of Arare, a village where people displaced by the flooding have camped, say that it has not rained in the past three days. Most people in Arare, lush as a result of the heavy rains, have arrived in the past six days after being displaced by flooding, Ferguson said. Since heavy rains pounded many parts of eastern African starting in October, the death toll from floods and related waterborne diseases is 230 in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, according to the World Food Program. People could be seen wading through waist-high flood waters about a kilometer (a mile) away. Houses could be seen submerged to their corrugated iron roofs.
