•49 Cross River communities threatened
ABOUT 40,000 people in Kano and Benue States, many of them women and children, have been displaced from their homes by floods in the last one week.
Their property, including farms and livestock estimated at millions of naira, are also under water or washed away.
Forty-nine communities in Cross River State may be next to be affected, according to a report yesterday.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) estimates that 25,000 from 14 communities are now homeless in Makurdi and environs in the aftermath of the overflowing of River Benue.
The authorities in Cameroun were said to have released massive water from the Lagdo Dam into the river precipitating the overflow.
The other 15,000 people were displaced from five villages in Warawa Local Government Area of Kano State by water from Tiga Dam.
Submerged are Laraba Jigawa, Katarkawa, Garundau, Wambanto and Litau villages.
Farms and livestock of the residents have also been submerged or washed away.
Five camps have been created for the victims at Token Primary School, NALDA Secretariat, Emawa Primary School, Laraba Jigawa and Dan Hawan Giwa Primary School,according to the Director of Personnel of Warawa Local Government, Alhaji Ahmed Haruna Bichi.
However, the displaced people have cried out about inadequate shelter, food and medication.
One of them, Hajiya Amina Yusuf, a mother of eight said government officials are hardly available to cater for the needs of the displaced people.
She said: “It was only this afternoon that they brought us gari and sugar. I have about eight children with me, what can we do with three cups of gari? This is pathetic and I call on those in authority to do something urgently to alleviate our plight.
“We did not cause the flood. We are victims of a natural disaster and that does not mean that we should not be treated as human beings. In everything, we give Allah the glory that all of us survived the flood.”
Alhaji Bichi has pledged that efforts are being made to make the victims as comfortable as possible.
He said the situation could have been worse if the people had failed to heed the warning by NEMA to leave their villages.
“We have started making plans for their resettlement. As you can see, some relief materials have just arrived the camp and more efforts are being put in place to get them more provisions, particularly, food items,” he said.
Relief materials already distributed to them included 60 bags of gari, 30 bags of sugar, 1,300 loaves of bread and 500 bags of sachet water.
Nineteen people were reportedly killed by earlier flooding in 30 Local Government Areas of the state.
In Makurdi, the raging River Benue submerged farms and houses up to five kilometres away from its banks.
NEMA says although it has set up three camps for the displaced people, many of the victims are reluctant to relocate.
It was gathered that many of them find the cost of transporting their property beyond their means.
The Cross River State Emergency Management Agency said yesterday that over 49 coastal communities across seven Local Government Areas of the state are at the risk of severe flooding from water from Lagdo Dam in Cameroon.
The affected local government areas are Yala, Ogoja, Ikom, Obubra, Abi, Biase and Odukpani.
The Assistant Director of Information of the agency, Mr David Akate, said in a statement that farmland in some communities have already been submerged, destroying yams, cassava, vegetable cocoyam, melons and other cash crops worth millions of naira.
He said 11 persons have been reported killed by flood in the state this year while hundreds of houses have been submerged and pulled down, displacing thousands.
Also hundreds of houses have been flooded while over 10,000 livestock have been affected, the statement indicated.
Speaking in Isejah, one of the affected communities in Obubra Local Government Area, Director General of SEMA, Mr. Vincent Aquah, o expressed fears that the magnitude and severity of damage to lives and property would increase as the level of flood rises.
