At least 100 killed as El Nino tails off

At least 100 people have died and an estimated 800,000 displaced by floods in Kenya as rains recede meaning the El Nino rout has reached its peak.

A report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also shows that over 1,400 families are at risk of landslides in the highland areas while another 1.5 million are in danger during the short rains season which begun in October and is expected to continue in December.

The displacement is however significantly lower than expected while the enhanced rainfall has favoured arid and semi-arid areas with good pasture, crop development and has also replenished some water sources.

Currently, six counties have active cholera outbreaks as a result of the floods while about 1,000 acres have been inundated in Kisumu, Mwea, Garissa, Migori, West Pokot, Isiolo, Tana River and Mandera.

Food insecurity

The report on the effects of the El Nino phenomena in the Horn of Africa region released Wednesday indicated that the adverse climatic conditions will result in drought due to floods which will destroy crops leaving at least 300,000 people in the country at risk of suffering food insecurity.

However, the OCHA report notes that the country has not provided any data showing the kind of response the government has put in place to combat the predicted drought.

“The number of cases of severe and moderate malnutrition among children has also significantly increased in Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan and Kenya and this trend is likely to persist over coming months,” said Pete Manfield head of OCHA's regional office.

El Nino has had diverse effects in various countries in the Horn of Africa, the report shows, with floods in Kenya, Uganda and parts of Somalia and Ethiopia.

Conversely, drought conditions have been reported in parts of Ethiopia and Sudan and drier than average conditions in parts of Eritrea, Greater Upper Nile region of South Sudan, parts of Northern Uganda and parts of Somalia.

READ: Kenya set to benefit from Sh8.5bn El Nino fund

In total, 18 million people in the Eastern Africa region are at risk of being food insecure and the number is expected to rise significantly in 2016 due to lasting effects of floods which will affect harvests.

Ethiopia has the highest people at risk of lacking food at 10 million followed by South Sudan with 2.4 million people while only 120,000 people will face the same fate in Djibouti.

“The considerable humanitarian requirements are expected to remain at the current scale through much of 2016 until the majority of the affected people starts gradually recovering,” Mr Manfield added during a presentation of the report in Nairobi.