Middle Shabelle WASH Cluster Joint Assessment Figure 1:Mandheere village farm flooded Bayahaw and Mandheere flooding summary report: Report drafted by: Abukar Noor Abdi Field project coordinator –Polish Humanitarian Action-PAH CO-assessed by: SCC, WARDI, COMCARE, QODQOD, ORDO, FARJANO FOUNDATION, SORADIS, ACDO and WOCCA. Lead agency: Polish Humanitarian Action-PAH Type of assessment: Flood impact assessment. Date of assessment: 29th April 2018 Submitted to National WASH Cluster by: Middle Shabelle Regional WASH Cluster Focal Point on May 1st, 2018 Background Middle shabelle locates north of Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia. Its occupants are mainly farmers, while some are agro –pastoralists. There is along river that comes from the Ethiopian high lands. The river is named after the region; that is the shabelle. The river long passes through the region and has a unique characteristic that is it lies higher than the ground hence making it susceptible to floods to the neighbouring villages/lands and farms as well. Recently, it has flooded from two main breakages; that is at Bayahaw and Mandheere villages respectively. Both the breakage are fresh breakages flooding water to the farms lands. Methodology of collecting information during the Joint assessment Observations –The team walked round the affected and of concern villages and employed sight to observe the immediate surroundings to see the effects of the flood. Key community members open focus group discussions in order to gather the underlying information affecting the community. At the first, we alighted at Bayahaw village and assessed the breakage point and found: Bayahaw breakage The length of the breakage is 28 m including the weak point and still widening with the intense flood pressure. It is flooding with high pressure and speed to open farmlands destroying crops like maize and sesame. The sesame crop is washed and carried away by the strong floods. The breakage at Bayahaw is around 2km to the village itself and currently not showing any flooding to the village as there is a barrier of canal embankment that prevents water from flowing in the village flooded water has totally enclosed the whole village and no entrance and exit passages which is forcing the villagers to suffer as they were cut from the main Market that is Jowhar for their shopping and survival in terms of petty works and now no longer attached and intimidated. The families now depend on raw mango that are growing now. There was sign of children malnutrition based on the observation made on the children in the village. That Bayahaw breakage blocked access to Jowhar market for most of eastern river bank villagers from Bayahaw to Maagaay villages, the only means of transportation is by boat or pass through flooded water which is very serious for women, children and elderly. Water sources in Bayahaw and Mandheere villages. -Bayahaw village is having many shallow wells dug but only one functions which is inside a mosque where the village depends on it and the well has no top RCC cover and no drainage channel which creates a concern by allowing dirt to seep into the well water. The rest are sub standardly dug around 5 m deep and are saline which are not used totally Figure 2:Bayahaw village shallow well that serves the whole community -the well has broken top lid -It has no also drainage channel to drain off water. -Is inside a mosque compound and has little access by the people and it is mostly closed to prevent mosques from animals and children playing inside. -Mandheere village has also many sub standardly dug shallow wells that is saline and cannot be used for drinking and so they are using the river water for drinking. They use the saline shallow well water for cleaning latrines. They have concerns over clean water since the community uses river water. Both communities fetch water from the river as the shallow wells are not enough for the whole village populations. Figure 3:Mandheere villagers fetching water from the river Mandhere breakage The breakage dimension is 20m width and 7m depth and Under control by community and the Local authority. Onsite materials were empty sacks, logs, binding wire, and human resource. Closure of the site was going on. regular twenty men are doing construction of gabions while seventy other men and women are filling the sand bags and transporting the filled sand bags to the site for final laying of the sand bags.the breakage site is around 3km to the village itself and flooding towards farmlands and spreading and progressing to new areas of farmlands, flowing towards west wards and progressing into more farm lands and to the main Jowhar- Balcad roads. It has come near the village Mandheere to a distance of around 1km south of the village. Though it has claimed many hectares of maize, sesame crops as shown in the figure below. Maandhere breakage blocked access to Jowhar market for most of western river bank villagers from Mandhere to Raqeylow villages, the only means of transportation is by boat or pass through flooded water which is very serious for women, children and elderly, even flooded water from Mandhere reached now Balad area, like Hawadley which is under Balad, if this breakage is not blocked, flooded water will cut off main street which links Jowhar to Mogadishu in Gololey area and will reach to Lower Shabelle Region. Figure 4:Mandheere maize farm with flood There were flash floods that flooded houses though regressed later and no more visible water in the homesteads but instead the effects is observable including marks where water level reached during flooding period in the HHs and most of the house affected are persons and few people are living as most of them went to Mogadishu for work. Thevillage; Mandheere is very wide with close settlement pattern. Figure 5:Mandheere Flash flood flooded houses and no one live in them now. There was a man that was selected to be a foreman by the local authority (in charge) of the breakage closure at Mandhere village. The foreman is controlling and distributing work for the workers and ensure that they report and do work as stipulated. However, the workers were facing short of construction materials and were requesting for the following materials to be delivered urgently: Local logs for reinforcement with the metal poles. Metal poles(Binaar and Feero L) PotableHammers-Normal size. A boat for facilitating movement when installing poles into the ground. Binding wire for binding materials together. Empty sand bags around ten thousand more Pincers. The workers requested from the Joint assessment team(JAT) to consider them for any incentive if possible so that they also in turn feed their children behind as they are engaged with fighting the floods. Institutions in the flood affected villages a) Mandheere clinic At Mandheere village there is a clinic run by Somali Red cross society(SRCS) which is in the villages. The Clinic has offers normal Outpatient therapeutic feeding, OPD department, emergency delivery and stabilization of severe malnutrition cases. The Clinic has 14 staff -nurses (11M,3F) . It has also three latrines and eight rooms. It operatesfrom(8 am-2pm) working for seven hours a day. The clinic depends on Jowhar for Supply from Mogadishu. The clinic has two volunteers who do regular cleaning and looks quite clean. The clinic offers assistance to the neighbouring villages like Daymasame, Bodale, Hanoley, Magaay Baqdaad among others who report to the clinic on daily basis.Around, on average thirty patients come on daily basis from far and wide villages surrounding the location. The clinic has one big tank around100 litres for water which is sourced from the river. The Clinic has not yet received an AWD cases but have cases of malnutrition arriving and received mostly. The clinic refers the severe malnutrition cases to Intersos hospital for admission in the stabilization centres Figure 6:Mandheere clinic Figure 7:Mandheere clinic side view Common flood impact/Challenges faced in the two villages: Hygiene and sanitation is very low as some rain water formed stagnant and heaps of rubbish could be observed everywhere with stinging smell that creates nuisance in the village. Heavy infestation by vectors broke out like mosquito bringing vector borne diseases like malaria affecting young children and women and others at large. Displaced around 350HHs from Birimo seendo rural village to shamindo and Bula sheikh villages respectively. 2450HHs are trapped by the flood resulting no exit and entry passages in the villages. Some Families in the village use river water which is impure for drinking and there is fear of AWD cases as a result of impure consumption. Mandheere has no sweat water and so depends on the river for water. Crop destruction including maize, sesame, pumpkin and watermelon. The clinic at Mandheere village lacks clean water sources as they depend on river water though they chlorinate as the supervisor on duty said. The neighbouring villages who used to visit and benefit from the clinic at Mandheere were prevented to visit the by the surrounding floods hence population visiting has gradually dropped as it used to be around 50 patients on daily basis. Bayahaw totally has no access to any health unit and is facing a big emergency in terms of health services. Children and pregnant mothers and elderly look emaciated as a result of meal frequency reduction. As said, there is only one meal or two meals a day and even some have one meal in houses where adults only live since the flood has enclosed the villages and people cannot get food from the market. Little or no latrines in the affected villages.