The Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Mohammed Fall, announced on Tuesday, a $6 million allocation from the Nigeria Humanitarian Fund to assist flood victims in Borno State.
The collapse of Alau Dam, located just over 10 miles south of Maiduguri, the state capital, on September 10 forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.
During a news conference in New York on Monday, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric reported that a joint mission of UN agencies, NGOs, and the Nigeria Red Cross Society visited Maiduguri over the weekend. Dujarric noted that many of those impacted had already been displaced multiple times due to conflict and insecurity in the region.
“We and our partners are providing them with hot meals, we are facilitating air drops of food in hard-to-reach areas cut off by flood waters, and we are also trucking in water.
“We are also providing water and sanitation hygiene services and water purification tablets to stem disease outbreaks.
“This is in addition to supplying hygiene and dignity kits to women and girls, as well as emergency health and shelter services.”
Dujarric said that staff from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs are working closely with donors to secure additional funding for relief efforts.
Flooding across Nigeria has devastated more than 125,000 hectares of farmland, occurring just before the harvest season, and at a time when 32 million people in the country are grappling with severe food insecurity.
Earlier, Emmanuel Bigenimana, head of the World Food Programme office in Maiduguri, reported that he conducted a rapid assessment of the damage and needs by flying over the city in a UN Humanitarian Air Service helicopter dispatched by the WFP.
He stated “What I have seen is really heartbreaking,” describing homes, infrastructure, roads, schools, hospitals submerged by water.
He also noted, “Many, many people I’m talking about over 200,000 – 300,000 displaced people are overcrowded in several IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps and also on the streets.”
The World Food Programme (WFP) reported that the collapse of Alau Dam caused river water to flood 50 percent of Maiduguri, prompting state authorities to issue evacuation orders and appeal for humanitarian aid.
Speaking from one of the internally displaced persons (IDP) camps, Bigenimana said WFP had established soup kitchens to provide hot meals to those affected and was scaling up its efforts alongside authorities and partners.
The soup kitchens, located in three camps: Teachers’ Village, Asheikh, and Yerwa aim to provide nutritious meals to 50,000 of the most severely impacted children, women, and men who have lost their homes, WFP said, though additional assistance is urgently needed.
