Severe flooding continues to wreak havoc in northeastern Nigeria, impacting over one million people and raising concerns about the spread of diseases and widespread food shortages. Authorities are currently working to coordinate relief efforts for those affected by the disaster.
The crisis was caused by torrential rains, which caused a dam to overflow, flooding vast regions and affecting hundreds of thousands of people. Among the impacted areas was a state-owned zoo, releasing crocodiles and snakes into nearby communities overwhelmed by the rising waters.
The dam was damaged in Alau, near Maiduguri, on the Ngadda River, 20 kilometres south of Maiduguri, on 9 September.
Over the weekend, an additional 50,000 people were displaced in northeastern Nigeria as the floods intensified, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said on Monday.
Local authorities are mobilising aid for the disaster victims, but the scale of need is overwhelming, and healthcare workers are concerned about the potential for an outbreak of disease.
Displacement and disease
The United Nations coordinator in the country, Mohamed Malick Fall visited the region over the weekend, and reported that “a good half of the city [Maiduguri] is impacted.”
“At least 400,000 people in the city are affected, with enormous health needs," Malick Fall told RFI. "The need for latrines, access to drinking water and food as well. My big fear now is to see an epidemic of cholera or another water-borne disease."
The flood has killed at least 30 people according to Nigeria's emergency agency and affected a million others, with thousands of people forced into camps for displaced people.
The authorities first set up eight camps to accommodate people displaced by the disaster.
The figure rose to "30 camps around the city" of Maiduguri, Trond Jensen, head of OCHA, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in Nigeria, told RFI on Monday.
But according to the NGO Save The Children, some other families "are still trapped in their homes” and the city's two main hospitals are flooded.
They are exposed to waterborne diseases, and diarrhoea, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres; malaria is around with a lot of mosquitoes.
The floods are described as the worst in 30 years, by the local authorities.
In one of the camps, Bintu Amadu was among hundreds of frustrated people waiting for hours to see a doctor because her son had diarrhoea.
"We have not received any aid, and our attempts to see a doctor have been unsuccessful. We have been waiting for medical attention since yesterday, but to no avail," she said.
Hunger risks
The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that “more than 550,000 hectares of agricultural land have been flooded” this year across the country, especially in the Northeast, where malnutrition is already chronic because of the insecurity that reigns in this region.
Mathias Goemaere, a field coordinator for MSF, said that even before the floods, residents in Borno were struggling with malnutrition, following years of the Islamist insurgency that has driven people from their farms.
Meals, shelter and basic necessities are gradually being distributed, but “it’s a race against time to help the victims,” warned the United Nations coordinator, Malick Fall.
“This crisis comes on top of the one linked to the Boko Haram, which has already displaced many people,” for 15 years," he said.
In the last two weeks of August, more than 1.5 million people were displaced across 12 countries in West and Central Africa due to floods, and about 465 have been killed, according to the United Nations humanitarian affairs office.
Prison break
The city centre of Maiduguri was not spared: the market, schools, administrative buildings were hit by the floods.
Last week, as the rains continued to pour, over 280 prisoners even managed to escape a jail in Maiduguri, when its walls collapsed.
Seven of the escaped inmates have been recaptured in operations by security agencies, Umar Abubakar, spokesperson for the Nigeria Correctional Services said in a statement.
"The floods brought down the walls of the correctional facilities including the Medium Security Custodial Centre, as well as the staff quarters in the city," Abubakar said.
Operations to recapture the remainder of the inmates are underway.
(with newswires)
