arba-minch

The crocodile ranch lies almost hidden and largely forgotten behind the airport in Ethiopia’s southern town of Arba Minch. The country’s first crocodile farm, it was built by an enterprising government official in the 1980s to generate foreign currency in one of Africa’s poorest countries, where people mainly live from subsistence farming.

Search-and-rescue teams kept up frantic efforts on Friday to save thousands marooned by fatal flash floods in south-west Ethiopia where relief workers reported near-total devastation. Already, nearly 900 people in southern, eastern and northern Ethiopia have been reported dead or missing in the past two weeks.