Finnish Red Cross sets up clinics in flood-hit areas in Kenya
Flood, mud, and red tape slow aid effort
Mobile clinics sent by the Finnish Red Cross have begun to treat patients in the Tana River Valley in the east of the country, which has been hit by flooding recently.
There are dozens of camps set up for people displaced by the flooding resulting from the exceptionally heavy rain this season. Each camp houses between 500 and 5,000 people.
Facilities manned by Finnish, German, and Japanese teams have started operations in the area, where an estimated 700,000 people have been affected by the flooding.
According to the Finnish Red Cross, 126 patients were treated at one of the clinics in the village of Morokan. The most typical conditions treated at the clinic are malaria, children's diarrhoea, and respiratory infections. Nine pregnant women were also examined.
The Finnish Red Cross clinics were flown from Tampere to the Kenyan flood areas a week ago Friday. Setting them up has been delayed by the rain and mud, as well as local red tape. Now at least the rains appear to have eased somewhat.
Jari Vainio, a Finnish doctor working in Bura is nevertheless optimistic. "Expectations may have been high, but considering the facts, this has gone as it should have."
"This is not an earthquake, in which the first week is decisive from the point of view of rescue. It can easily take two months before epidemics break out."
Vainio sees the Red Cross operation in Kenya more as a development cooperation effort than disaster relief. Four months worth of funding has been earmarked for the clinics, and at some point, the aim is to let the Kenyan Red Cross take over.
"This is an African survival story", says Vainio about the floods. "This is normal life for them.
The Kenyan media has paid little attention to the flooding in the country's rural east.
"This is a marginal area", says Moses Atuko, head of the Kenyan Red Cross organisation of the Garissa region on Friday. "If something like this were to happen in Nairobi, the newspapers and television would be there right away."
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 18.12.2006 - TODAY |
 Finnish Red Cross sets up clinics in flood-hit areas in Kenya |
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