NAIROBI, 8 December 2010 (IRIN) - Local leaders have appealed for urgent help for thousands of people at risk following a severe drought in Somalia's central region of Mudug.

"We had very little Gu rains [long rains in April-June] and the Deyr [October-December] rains have totally failed, which has made a very bad situation even worse," Abdullahi Mahamud Nur, an elder, told IRIN on 8 December.

Nur said at least 5,000 families (30,000 people) in 13 villages northeast and southeast of the regional capital, Galkayo, needed immediate assistance.

Galkayo is 700km north of Mogadishu.

Most of the people rely on livestock but poor rainfall had left them struggling to make ends meet, Nur added. He said the hardest-hit were settlements in Towfiq, Eil Dhanane, Dhinowda and Afbarwaqo areas.

"I have seen with my own eyes goats and sheep and cattle dying; what livestock is left is so weak they cannot travel anywhere for water," Nur said. "They cannot be sold and they are useless for milk or meat."

He said he was willing to accompany any agency to the area and called on agencies to scale up their activities.

The situation had also forced some nomads to move to towns, Nur said. "There are some who have already reached Galkayo."

Abdiaziz Aw Yusuf, also known as Harin, a former district commissioner for Jariiban in Mudug - the nearest major town to the affected area - said the worst-off villages were close to the coast.

"They have had no rains and they don't have barkads [water catchments]," he said. "The first need is water and then food. Many who may have not already lost all their animals will do so if they don't get water soon."

Harin said the area populated by the Dir and the Sheikhal clans fell between the two main clans in the area, the Habar Gedir and the Majerteen, and were often ignored.

Like most of central Somalia, the area had no rain in the last rainy season and water points and boreholes have either dried up or what water is there is not fit to drink for people or livestock, said Mustafa Abdulaziz, of the Homboboro Releif and Rehabilitation Organization, a local NGO.

"We are planning to truck water to some of the worst affected villages like Towfiq, but the scale of the need is much greater than what we can deliver," he said.

An estimated two million Somalis need humanitarian assistance, according to the UN.