Nearly 100 people have been killed in Somalia by flooding caused by ongoing heavy rains, national disaster management agency SODMA said on Saturday, November 25.
Mahamuud Moallim, the head of the agency, put the number of dead at 96. He spoke at a press conference.
According to government media, the victims include 28 people who died in “a boat capsize caused by al-Shabaab interference”.
There has been no independent confirmation of the report.
Heavy rains caused by the El Nino and Indian Ocean Dipole weather phenomena have battered Somalia since October.
The resultant floods have displaced hundreds of thousands of people and worsened a humanitarian crisis brought by several failed rainy seasons, Somali authorities and the UN say.
The flooding during the current October -December rain season has been described as the most severe in decades in the country.
Similar floods are reported to have killed dozens of people and destroyed roads and bridges in neighbouring Kenya.
