ETHIOPIA: Waiting to bury the dead

Photo: OCHA

Flood survivors at a partially destroyed house in Dire Dawa.

DIRE DAWA, 11 August 2006 (IRIN) - Every time word spread through Dire Dawa town that the police had found more bodies, Zeituna Hassen rushed to the morgue at Dil Chora hospital to search for her brother. On Thursday the police brought in more bodies. As she had done since Monday, the 35-year-old Zeituna went back to the morgue. But her brother, 26-year-old Ahmed was not among them. "It would be a relief for us if we found his body, [and could] wash and bury it with honour," she said, standing in the midst of her brothers and uncles. She had Ahmed's identity card - in case he was found and the police asked for proof that it was the right body and he was her relative. The flash flood hit Dire Dawa - Ethiopia's second-largest city with a population of 400,000 - on Sunday morning. Zeituna, one of 10,000 people displaced by the waters that swept away more than 200 homes, had believed her brother had survived. Accompanied by her relatives, she searched for him the next day, travelling as far as 35 km down the river, but to no avail. That was when she gave up hope of finding him alive. Later on Monday afternoon when the police found 10 more bodies, she was among the large crowd that arrived at the morgue but Ahmed was not one of the bodies identified by distraught relatives. Search continues Dire Dawa continues to suffer after-effects of the floods and to bury the hundreds killed when the raging waters hit the city as residents slept. And as anxious relatives wait and hope, the police and other volunteers continue digging in the sand for those still missing. "Our policemen were digging in some places of the city the whole day following the bad smell," Inspector Binyam Fikru, head of the Dire Dawa Police Commission, said on Thursday. "But we could not find [any bodies] this afternoon." According to the police inspector, the exact number of those missing is still unclear - contrary to some reports of 300 missing. "The police have a list of some of the missing persons but that was registered on Sunday," he added. "Some families gave the names of three to six persons but when they have got the corpses of one of them, they did not return to the police, but preferred to bury what they found [directly]." He added that the police, who did not expect to find any more survivors, were now concentrating on searching for more dead bodies - even as the death toll reached 250 on Thursday afternoon. "Sometimes we have found the remains of dogs, but we continue [to search]" Binyam said. For Zeituna, the waiting continues. "I am still searching for him," she said on Thursday, as the police dispersed the crowd of relatives and friends waiting outside the morgue for further information about the missing. tw/mw/eo