Kenya Red Cross Society on Tuesday rescued 15 children who were stuck in farms as floods wreaked havoc in Tana River county.
The children aged below 10 years were with their parents in the farms when they were caught up by the flood waters that surrounded their farms making it difficult for them to reach safe areas.
Residents of Feji in Garsen made a distress call to the Kenya Red Cross Society officials who organized a boat and embarked on a rescue mission. Also rescued were three women and a man.
Kenya Red Cross Society coast regional manager Hassan Musa said they got a distress from locals that some people were stuck in the farms due to the floods. He said it took 45 minutes for the Kenya Red Cross team to reach the people.
Musa said priority will be given to children, women and the elderly as they were most vulnerable.
“We embarked on the rescue mission and we managed to find over 10 families majority of them a children, where I am right now we have rescued five children,” he said.
“We shall start with children, women and then we embark on rescuing men and the household items,” he said.
Musa noted that the area has been raining in the past three days but most of the flood waters were as a result of water from upstream.
The Kenya Red Cross Regional Manager warned all those living near the River Tana to move to safe grounds as the situation was expected to get worse.
“We are also having challenges in the rescue operation as the boat cannot carry over 15 people so we have to make two or three trips to save these lives so we urge whoever is in these areas to vacate to higher grounds as the water level is rising all the time,” he said.
Mwanaharusi Galani a victim revealed that she went to the farm three days ago but her pleas to her husband to move to a higher ground fell into deaf ears.
“My husband said we would only leave if the water levels were very high,” she said adding that she was happy to have been rescued.
Dickson Wekesa
