MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, Sept 16 (Askume) – People in flood-ravaged Borno state in Nigeria’s northeast are struggling to access medical services while aid agencies worry about the spread of water-borne diseases after the region’s worst floods in three decades.
More than 30 people have died in the floods, and officials say about 1 million people have been affected , most of whom have been forced to live in refugee camps without food and clean water.
Flooding not only threatens the health and safety of displaced people but also puts a strain on aid agencies and government resources, exacerbating an already severe humanitarian crisis.
Heavy rains in Borno, home to Boko Haram militants in the Lake Chad Basin, have caused dams to burst, causing flooding that has affected countries across Africa’s Sahel region, including Cameroon, Chad, Mali and Niger. Rare.
Flooding in the last two weeks of August displaced more than 1.5 million people in 12 countries in west and central Africa and killed about 465 people, according to the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs.
Another 50,000 people have been displaced as flooding intensified over the weekend in northeastern Nigeria, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said on Monday.
“The situation in the Sahel and Lake Chad regions is becoming increasingly dire, as the combined effects of conflict, displacement and climate change disproportionately affect vulnerable groups,” said Hassan Hama, NRC Regional Director for Central and West Africa du.
The flooding in West Africa comes as Europe grapples with days of torrential rain that has caused rivers to overflow in many parts of the region.
Bintu Amadou is one of hundreds of desperate people waiting for hours to see a doctor at a camp in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno.
“We have not received any help and our efforts to meet doctors have been unsuccessful. We have been waiting for medical assistance since yesterday but to no avail,” he said.
Ramatu Yajubu was happy to receive her appointment card after waiting for several days, but she immediately said: “There were so many people seeking treatment, I was not sure I would get attention.”
Even before the floods, Borno residents were already struggling with malnutrition because years of Islamist insurgency forced people from their farms, said Mathias Gomel, a field coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières.
“They were exposed, so what did we see? A lot of waterborne diseases, diarrhea, diarrhoeal diseases … malaria and a lot of mosquitoes,” Gomel told Askume.
“Many people have weakened immune systems due to malnutrition, making them more susceptible to illness.”
Nigeria’s government has warned that rising water levels in the country’s largest rivers, the Benue and Niger rivers, could flood the oil-producing Niger Delta region in the south.
