NAIROBI, 24 November (IRIN) - Increased tensions between political groups in Somalia have created challenges for aid workers trying to deliver relief to hundreds of thousands of people displaced by floods across the country, the United Nations said on Friday.

The flooding came at a time of heightened political rivalries between Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the increasingly influential Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), Eric Laroche, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, said.

However, he noted that both groups had pledged to cooperate with aid workers bringing relief to the flood victims. "All actors are willing to work together," Laroche added. He said he had met Somalia's interim Prime Minister Ali Muhamed Gedi who told him that the Transitional Federal Government had formed a committee to mobilise response to the emergency.

"It is a huge humanitarian crisis," he added. "The task ahead is huge." Laroche was one of a team of UN officials who flew over the devastated Juba and Shabelle river valleys in southern Somalia on Wednesday.

Tension has also risen between Ethiopia and the UIC. The Islamic group accuses Ethiopia of deploying troops inside Somalia to back the TFG and Addis Ababa has alleged that the UIC was linked to terror groups hostile to Ethiopia. Sabre-rattling between Ethiopia and the UIC could complicate plans to use helicopters in the relief effort because of the possible suspicions of spying, said Laroche. The use of helicopters was "a risk", he said.

Laroche said more than 330,000 people had been displaced by the floods that have inundated villages after the two rivers, which flow from the highlands of neighbouring Ethiopia, swelled after heavy rainfall there and in Somalia.

Lower Juba was the worst hit, particularly areas around the towns of Buaale, Jilib and Jamaame, according to Chris Print, project officer with the water section of the UN Children's Fund (Unicef) Somalia office, who was also on the assessment flight. "Focus has to be on Lower Juba [where] villages are isolated and under water," said Print. "We are very concerned." He said some villages that have been evacuated were three to four metres under water and that more rainfall in the Ethiopian highlands due to the existing minor El Niño conditions could lead to a disaster similar to the devastation wrought by the 1997 floods.

Print said the situation along the Shabelle had improved, with the flood water receding from the town Beletweyne. He said the response by humanitarian agencies in Beletweyne had been "adequate", but those displaced were still in need of food and non-food items because they were still unable to return home. "Sanitation is very bad and there is still a lot of muck in the streets," Print said of Beletweyne.

The flood-hit communities in southern Somalia were already vulnerable because they had not recovered from the severe drought of earlier this year when they lost thousands of livestock and had no harvest. "Juba has been in a chronic humanitarian crisis," said Cindy Holleman, technical manager with Somalia's Food Security Analysis Unit (FSAU), a project funded by USAID, the European Commission and Norway, and managed by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. The assets of an already vulnerable people had been destroyed by the floods, Holleman said.

The UN has acquired four Mi-8 civilian helicopters from commercial sources for the flood relief effort in Kenya and Somalia, according to Matthew Olins, the deputy head of the Somalia office of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Two of the helicopters, each with a load capacity of 3.5 tonnes, are expected to start operating in Somalia within a week, he said.

Laroche estimated that US$15 million or more would be required for the flood emergency in Somalia depending on how severe the situation becomes.

The floods in the Horn of Africa have affected 1.8 million people in Somalia, Ethiopian and Kenya, according to UN estimates.

In a related development, the Ethiopian government and its humanitarian partners appealed on Thursday for US$27 million for the flood-devastated Somali Region, OCHA said.

"This appeal is vital to save lives and restore the livelihoods of the flood victims through immediate and medium-term rehabilitation interventions," Simon Mechale, head of the Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency said at the launch in Addis Ababa. "It is important to note that the long-term needs are yet to be assessed and must also be addressed once the full extent of damages is known."

Since the end of October, the southern Somali Region has suffered devastation as a result of heavy flooding caused by torrential rains, especially in the Lower Shabelle areas of Gode, Afder, Liben and Korahe. At least 361,000 people have been affected, of whom 80 have died and 122,500 are displaced.

Among the items needed are blankets, plastic sheeting, cooking pots, and essential medical supplies as well as emergency water and sanitation equipment. "The government and the United Nations remain especially concerned about the possibility that opportunistic diseases such as malaria, polio and acute watery diarrhoea may overwhelm vulnerable flood affected populations," the appeal document noted.

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