From drought to deluge: Kenyan villagers reel from floods

Moses Muli

23.11.2023

The latest disaster has claimed dozens of lives and caused large-scale displacement in Kenya.

Days after floodwaters swallowed her home in eastern Kenya, Fatuma Hassan Gumo waded through thigh-deep murky water to collect her only remaining possessions – floating utensils.

Flash floods from the Tana River in Garissa, a county on the border with Somalia, forced the 42-year-old fruit vendor to flee at night from her submerged home built from mud and corrugated metal sheets to the nearest dry land with her family of 12, including seven children.

“Eating here has become a luxury,” she said. “We don’t know when we will eat the next meal.”

It is the fourth time the 37-year-old widow has been displaced by floods in less than a decade, and the latest downpour has washed away her watermelon farm – her only source of income. Along with her teenage daughter, Hassan said they plan to return home after the water recedes, fearing starvation at the camp.