SOMALIA: Crops destroyed, families displaced as Shabelle bursts banks

NAIROBI Wednesday, November 19, 2008 (IRIN) - At least 8,000 hectares of farmland in southern Somalia's Lower Shabelle region have been destroyed after the Shabelle river burst its banks, displacing thousands of people, officials said.The flooding occurred around the town of Kurtunwarey, 140km south of Mogadishu."In Afgoye Yarey alone, the population of some 1,750 families [about 10,500 people], were affected. Not a single resident is there now," Sidow Hassan Arkey, an elder, told IRIN on 19...