Juba floodplain monitor accuses US airstrikes of exploiting El Niño in Somalia

Africom denies using weather or flooding as a method of warfare

Mark Townsend reported from Kismayo for The Guardian on Oct. 26 that a source monitoring Somalia’s Juba River floodplain accused US airstrikes of forcing residents toward the river and pushing the population into flood-prone areas as a rapidly strengthening El Niño was forecast to intensify Somalia’s rainy season from October. “The airstrikes are forcing people to go close to the river. It’s an extremely aggressive offensive, exploiting El Niño as a weapon of war to push the population into flood-prone areas,” the source said. The Guardian presented the allegation as a question of whether the military strategy was deliberate.

The monitor said the official line was that US forces were targeting military positions and al-Shabaab, but because al-Shabaab was embedded within the community, it was difficult to avoid collateral damage. The source said pinning the population, which included large numbers of women and children, on the river’s floodplain raised concerns about large-scale deaths in the months ahead.

Analysts questioned the ethics of the US military allegedly using mapping data from flood-prone areas, data conceived to mitigate civilian casualties, to inflict harm. Jethro Norman, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, said: “A weaponisation of El Niño is a reversal of process – using humanitarian remote sensing to inflict casualties rather than to mitigate harm. You capture the cumulative impact of a sustained airstrikes campaign in an El Niño flooding context.” Africom rejected the allegation. A spokesperson said: “Africom does not target civilians, conduct operations for the purpose of displacing civilian populations or use weather or flooding as a method of warfare. Africom targets lawful military objectives and takes feasible measures to mitigate civilian harm.” The Guardian reported that many observers wondered whether the opportunity to weaken al-Shabaab using the weather was too tempting to ignore, raising the prospect of a catastrophic drowning event blamed on a supercharged El Niño.

The rapidly rising water had reached Cayni Ali’s waist. Her home stood five metres from the flooded Juba River in southern Somalia, and she said there was nowhere to go. Ali, 27, and a mother of six, said Jilib was under attack and repeated airstrikes were pinning its population beside the rising river. “The drones come all the time,” she said. “We hear them constantly. They kill animals, civilians. The town is big but destruction is everywhere.” A photograph showed Cayni Ali with her child Mandeq at a health centre in Kismayo. Photograph: Hugh Kinsella Cunningham.

Asho Omar from Malenda, a village near Jilib, described “constant” airstrikes that forced people toward the banks of the Juba. “The airstrikes are everywhere; it is difficult to move. So many people have been killed,” she said. Their accounts offered a rare glimpse of life inside al-Shabaab’s stronghold. Jilib was its de facto capital, cut off from the outside world, and residents described significant civilian casualties and bodies in the streets. Al-Shabaab, described as Islamist militants, controls 30% of Somalia. The Guardian described the ongoing conflict as “a legally ambiguous, shadowy war coordinated by the United States in east Africa, in which there is little accountability for harm to Somali civilians.” A separate photograph from 2023 showed a colonel from US special operations in Somalia with a soldier from a branch of the Somali army trained by US special forces in Mogadishu. Photograph: Jonathan Torgovnik/Getty Images.

Flood warnings expose gaps in evacuation capacity

When El Niño last struck Somalia in 2023, it caused the worst floods seen in the country for a century and displaced more than 1.2 million people. A photograph showed the aftermath in Luuq district, Jubaland, which the caption described as causing the country’s worst floods ever seen. Photograph: Feisal Omar/Reuters. Jilib lies on a low-lying plain and is chronically vulnerable to flooding, with farmland submerged during the 2023 rains.

Halimo Abdikadir from Kamsuuma, south of Jilib, described the destruction of her home, six miles, or 10km, from the river. “The waters came quickly at night – when they left, everything was mud. A lot of animals drowned.” Arbey Famu, 70, from Ahmed Yare, another village outside Jilib, expected the coming El Niño to be far worse than 2023, with her maize and sorghum crops underwater. “In Jilib, there is big flooding already,” Famu said. A caption identified Arbey Abdi Famu as a resident of the Dalhiska displacement camp in Kismayo. Photograph: Hugh Kinsella Cunningham.

The report said US defense officials would know the early indicators of El Niño’s effects in al-Shabaab’s heartland. UN agencies said the Juba River basin was of “particular concern,” and the International Committee of the Red Cross foresaw “severe flooding.” The report said a ground assault on Jilib carried significant risk: airstrikes had claimed the life of a senior al-Shabaab commander on Oct. 1 but could not overrun a city of 100,000. An aerial photograph showed the Juba River near Kismayo. Photograph: Hugh Kinsella Cunningham.

Ali Adan Ali, Jubaland’s commissioner for displaced people, identified 327 regions prone to flooding from his Kismayo office. By October, El Niño warnings had been issued for only half of them. Ali said the shortage of boats was his chief concern because thousands in al-Shabaab territory could be trapped on the east side of the river and unable to reach help in Kismayo, at the Juba’s mouth. Three years earlier, during the last El Niño, Ali said 19,000 people had been stranded for a week without food. “We are running out of time,” Ali said. Somalia’s aid budget was $2.2bn in 2023 and stood at about $300,000 at the time of reporting, while investment in flood protection had dwindled. A photograph showed people on Kismayo’s streets, where long-term drought and USAID cuts had brought misery. Photograph: Hugh Kinsella Cunningham.

Ali had not received a response from al-Shabaab about its El Niño readiness. Cayni Ali said no sandbags or flood defences had been deployed in Jilib, while earth walls erected along the river had proved insufficient. “They are not big enough,” she said. The latest River Juba flood advisory urged communities to “reinforce” weak riverbanks.

Resident accounts and official strike records diverge

Africom would not share “operational security” details of what the report called a “seemingly accelerating” campaign. The campaign and the ambiguity surrounding US operations raised questions about potential covert US strikes. The report said corroborating testimony portrayed a prolonged and “seemingly indiscriminate” campaign of airstrikes against al-Shabaab that appeared to have killed many civilians. The US would not share details of potential civilian fatalities “to protect US and partner forces and preserve operational security.”

Farhan Ahmed, 35, who lived in Jilib until fleeing last month, described constant terror. “There were airstrikes every day, all the time.” One strike flattened five homes in his neighbourhood, and Ahmed described bodies littering the city streets. Fadumo Abdi claimed the airstrikes were largely failing to target militants. “The attacks are mostly killing civilians. Some were buried, but some were not,” she said. Halimo Abdikadir from Kamsuuma added: “The drone attacks on Jilib are too much. So many people die.”

Yusuf Siidi, 27, from Araare near Jamame in al-Shabaab territory, said he witnessed three teenagers killed in one strike. Maryan Salah was at home near Jamame when a drone sent a shard of burning metal measuring 20cm into her backyard, landing next to her two-year-old daughter. “It was so close. I am very angry. I’m not part of the conflict,” she said. Her near miss predated the current offensive. Salah could recall only that it happened in “mid-March.” The US acknowledged a drone strike near Jamame on March 19, but no other data was provided. A photograph showed a mother taking her baby to a Somalia Red Crescent Society health centre in Kismayo to check for symptoms of malnutrition. Photograph: Hugh Kinsella Cunningham.

Although eyewitness accounts detailed what the report called an extraordinary number of strikes in Jilib, official US records confirmed only one airstrike there during August. The US said six took place last month and that it had conducted 11 strikes in total from the start of August through Oct. 26. The report described the opaque approach as raising questions over whether Africom had authorized covert airstrikes in the region. The US said it had publicized “all airstrikes conducted under its authority in Somalia. We do not maintain an undisclosed or unannounced strike count.”

Records from the nearest hospital indicated intensive airstrikes or fighting. The International Committee of the Red Cross treated 205 patients with “weapon-related” injuries in Kismayo this year, a 43% increase from last year. David Sterman, an analyst at the New America thinktank, said: “The possibility that we are seeing covert US strikes always looms large when there are strikes without clear attribution.” Turkey had also used drones to target al-Shabaab in Somalia and, while operating alongside Africom, rarely disclosed details of its strikes or military operations there.

Hunger and medical needs strain displacement sites

Beyond airstrikes and floods, the primary concern for Somalis was hunger. People fleeing the Juba valley said there was insufficient food to sustain them, while local authorities were offering humanitarian help to those who escaped. Asho Omar’s family of 13 survived on one fish a day; Omar held her hands less than 30cm apart to show its size. Habiba Ali, 55, from Jamame, said her family, like many others, shared one daily meal of maize, with the time between meals spent hiding from conflict. “When the fighting stops, we wait for it start again,” she said.

In Kismayo, long-term drought and USAID cuts had worsened conditions. Shukri Ahmed, 32, president of the Galbeed refugee camp, estimated that 6,000 people might have died across Kismayo’s network of displacement sites since the Trump administration abruptly shut USAID last year. Two children had died overnight in makeshift shelters from diarrhoea. A UN-backed body responsible for identifying famine warned that El Niño would “deepen [Somalia’s] hunger levels.” Zakaria Mohammed, head nurse for five years at Kismayo’s ICRC-supported hospital, said children from al-Shabaab territory arrived every day so severely malnourished or weak that they could not be saved. He said child-malnutrition rates had risen 40% this year. A photograph showed a malnourished three-month-old baby in Kismayo hospital’s intensive-care ward in September. Photograph: Hugh Kinsella Cunningham.

Xaawo Nacdoor reached the hospital just in time after al-Shabaab blocked her from leaving Jamame to obtain treatment for her dying 14-month-old daughter, Faadumo. Nacdoor fled at night and walked for three days with only a bottle of water, carrying the toddler on her back. Faadumo lost consciousness on the second day. “She was severely dehydrated, but I kept going,” Nacdoor said. At the hospital, Faadumo weighed 4.1kg; three days later, she weighed 4.4kg and survived. A separate photograph showed Fadumo Abdi with her 14-month-old daughter, Maryan, in Kismayo hospital’s infant intensive-care unit. Photograph: Hugh Kinsella Cunningham. Most patients at the hospital said they would never return home, describing life under al-Shabaab as offering no school, education, healthcare or food. Thousands of families straddling the Juba River, often among the poorest, faced conditions about to get much worse. The available reporting left the two accounts unresolved: the monitor said the strikes pushed the population into flood-prone areas, while Africom denied using weather or flooding as a method of warfare.