The United Nations Wednesday said it had released $5 million to help flood victims in Nigeria, where the rainy season has killed more than 300 people and caused widespread damage.
The money from its Central Emergency Relief Fund will help “scale up the flood response and address critical needs in three of the most flood affected states in Nigeria,” the UN said in a statement. They are Borno and Bauchi in the northeast, and Sokoto in the northwest.
The flooding has affected more than 1.2 million people in at least 31 out of Nigeria’s 36 states in the West African country, according to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
Around 127,500 hectares of farmland has also been affected.
“Floods across Nigeria have created a crisis within a crisis,” said Mohamed Malick Fall, the UN coordinator in Nigeria.
“Millions of people were already facing critical levels of food insecurity before the floods because of economic hardships that have made it exceedingly difficult for the most vulnerable to feed themselves and their families.
“The floods have compounded people’s suffering.”
The latest emergency aid is in addition to the $6 million already released by the Nigerian Humanitarian Fund. Several Nigerian states hit by flooding have seen rises in the cases of cholera. Last month, severe flooding disaster killed at least 31 people and forced around 400,000 out of their homes in northeastern city of Maiduguri, the Borno state capital.
‘Over 5 mn people in Africa impacted by floods’
More than 5 million people in 16 countries in Africa have been impacted by floods so far this year.
In Africa, floods have reached catastrophic levels, with Chad, Niger and Nigeria among the hardest hit countries accounting for more than 80 per cent of people affected, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Thursday.
More than 1,000 people have been killed, and at least 740,000 people have been displaced, the office said. In addition, hundreds of thousands of homes, more than 100 schools, and dozens of health facilities have been damaged. Nearly 500,000 acres of farmland have been affected, Xinhua news agency reported.
OCHA said that without sufficient support, the floods threaten to hinder the reopening of schools, with the new school year set to begin this month. The floods could also aggravate existing food insecurity, particularly in Chad and Niger.
“The precarious living conditions of people affected by the floods also increase the risk of waterborne diseases, such as cholera, which is spreading in many regions of Niger and Nigeria,” OCHA said.
The office said humanitarian partners are mobilised and supporting the response, including food and health assistance, but efforts are limited due to financial resources.
Acting Emergency Relief Coordinator Joyce Msuya has allocated $35 million from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund for flood relief in Chad, Niger, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Congo. “But more money is needed,” OCHA said.
Meanwhile, Msuya has allocated $5 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund to scale up the response to floods in the states of Borno and Bauchi in the northeast and Sokoto in Nigeria.
The new funds will help humanitarian partners reach 280,000 people in the three states with food, clean water, sanitation and shelter support, and will also help to rapidly mobilise resources to improve access to healthcare, including preventing the spread of cholera and other waterborne diseases, OCHA said.
The humanitarian coordinator in Nigeria, Mohamed Malick Fall, said that the floods have created a crisis within a crisis, with millions of people already facing critical levels of food insecurity before the floods.
Nigerian president confirms 25 killed in boat accident
At least 25 bodies have been recovered after a boat carrying more than 300 passengers capsized in Niger State in central Nigeria early this week, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu’s spokesman said.
Over 150 others were rescued after the overloaded wooden boat flipped over on the River Niger upstream of Jebba Dam in the Mokwa local government area Tuesday night, Bayo Onanuga, a senior presidential spokesman, said in a statement issued on behalf of Tinubu.
The victims were returning from a religious celebration in another community in Niger when the accident occurred, local authorities said in a separate statement issued earlier, noting mostly women and children were aboard the ill-fated boat. The exact cause of the accident is still under investigation.
Lamenting the incident, Tinubu has ordered the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) to investigate the spate of boat accidents in Niger and across the country and devise modalities to check the trend, said the presidency statement.
The Nigerian leader also directed the NIWA to expand the scope of its surveillance of inland waters to ensure “people’s safety and prosecute boat operators violating the ban on night sailing,” it added.
Boat accidents are common in Nigeria, often due to overloading, adverse weather conditions, and operational errors.
ALSO READ: South Africa’s inflation rate drops to 4.4% in Aug