"According to technical agencies, Somalia could experience the worst floods in a 20- to 50-year period," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement released in the Kenyan capital.

"Contingency planning for a worst-case scenario of concurrent floods and widespread conflict is ongoing," it said, adding that parts of Islamist-held southern and central Somalia are currently uninhabitable due to flooding.

The town of Beledweyne, about 300 kilometers (185 miles) north of Mogadishu has been underwater since November 10, forcing 50,000 people from their homes, marooning another 15,000 and affecting 10,000 in nearby villages, it said.

"As the water surge flows downstream, conditions ... are expected to get worse," OCHA said.

Witnesses and local officials have told AFP that at least 43 people have drowned, including several in Beledweyne, in raging flood waters since late October when torrential downpours first caused rivers to burst their banks.

The bulk of the dead are in the Bardheere, Lower Shabelle and Gedo regions, all controlled by the Islamists who seized Mogadishu in June and now hold almost all of southern and central Somalia, they said.

South of Beledweyne, in Jalalaqsi district, OCHA said it had reports that 19 villages had been abandoned due to floods, leaving about 1,000 families homeless.

It said some 2,000 hectares (4,940 acres) of cropland and 4,000 hectares (9,900 acres) of farmland, including pasture, had been destroyed in Jalalaqsi.

In the Islamist-controlled Lower and Middle Juba regions, south and west of Mogadishu, OCHA said 40 villages had been completely inundated but no casualties had been reported.

Relief efforts have been hampered by flooded roads and the military build-up and complicated further by a ban on flights to and from Somalia imposed by neighboring Kenya this week for security reasons, it said.

"Current capacity to deliver emergency aid hinges partly on immediate air access from Kenya to Somalia," OCHA said, adding that Kenya had exempted humanitarian flights from the ban, but still required 24-hour clearance.

"Several primary roads remain impassable and flights are in many cases the only possible means of transporting aid supplies."

Somalia, a nation of about 10 million, has lacked a functioning central authority and any disaster response mechanisms since being plunged into anarchy after the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

The rise of the Islamists poses a serious challenge to the two-year-old transitional government that has been riddled with infighting and unable to assert control in much of the nation.

Tensions between the two have been rising for months, exacerbated by "rampant arms flows" from ten countries and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement with most of the weapons going to the Islamists, according to UN experts.

A report due to be discussed by the UN Security Council on Friday says that quite apart from natural disasters, Somalia now contains "all of the ingredients for the increasing possibility of a violent, widespread, and protracted military conflict."

It says the Islamists are backed by Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Hezbollah, while the government is getting military support from Ethiopia, Uganda and Yemen.

earlier related report
Darfur spillover threatens water supplies in Chad: NGO
London (AFP) Nov 16, 2006 - Tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees in Chad risk water shortages as thousands of terrified Chadians flee a spillover of ethnic violence from Sudan's Darfur region, an aid group warned Thursday.

Oxfam International warned it may have to cut daily rations for the Sudanese refugees living in camps in southeastern Chad to help hundreds of displaced Chadians arriving daily to safe areas near the camps.

Roland Van Hauwermeiren, head of Oxfam's operations in eastern Chad, said in a statement that Oxfam's pumping station in Goz Beida, where many displaced are arriving, is already working at full capacity for the refugee camp.

Following a visit Tuesday to Goz Beida, where more than 4,000 Chadians have arrived since last week, he warned that rations would have to be slashed if there is no more water in the ground.

"As we cannot deprive these new arrivals of water, we will have to find other solutions, such as reducing the water available every day or trucking in water, until the security situation stabilizes and people are comfortable going home," Van Hauwermeiren said.

The state of the Chadian displaced was alarming, Van Hauwermeiren said.

"Many have arrived with nothing, and are camping under trees in a state of shock," he said.

"People I have spoken with say that in all of their years, they cannot remember things being this bad, with such hatred and destruction choking them out of their homes," said Van Hauwermeiren.

"Everyone wants to go home to their crops and to their regular lives but are too afraid to even consider it. The feelings of desperation among the people are overwhelming," he said.

In Addis Ababa, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan faced stiff resistance from the Sudanese government for his plan to create a hybrid African Union and United Nations peacekeeping mission to deal with escalating violence in Darfur.

On Monday, the Chadian government declared a state of emergency covering much of the country after recent clashes between Arab and non-Arab communities killed hundreds of people in the east.

The Chadian government has blamed Khartoum for causing the latest bout of unrest, accusing the Sudanese government of launching "a global strategy ... to destabilize Chad."

In recent weeks, UN diplomats have spoken of the possibility of deploying a police force to Chad to protect the more than 200,000 Sudanese refugees and more than 50,000 internally displaced persons.

The war in Darfur erupted in February 2003 when rebels from minority tribes took up arms to demand an equal share of national resources, prompting a heavy-handed crackdown from the Sudanese government forces and proxy militia called Janjaweed.

Related Links
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Bring Order To A World Of Disasters
Out Of Africa