Government plans to help flood victims

Plans have been concluded to provide emergency assistance to people displaced in the past week by floods in northern Nigeria, the head of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said on Wednesday. Dozens of people were reported dead while thousands were displaced in floods that swept through Kano State and neighbouring Jigawa after water released from two swollen dams caused the rivers Kano and Hadejia to overflow. Large swathes of farmland and scores of villages were flooded. “We have gone out there to assess the situation and we are in the process of providing assistance to the victims,” NEMA Director-General Remi Olowu told IRIN. She said NEMA had so far counted 15,000 displaced people in Kano while figures for Jigawa State and the overall death toll were still being collated. Nigerian Red Cross spokesperson Abiodun Orebiyi told IRIN: “Our latest report shows over 48,000 people displaced, but we have recorded only 20 deaths.” He said new updates were still being expected from Red Cross field officers. Residents and other local sources in the areas worst hit by the floods had said that up to 100 people may have died. Orebiyi said the Red Cross had provided emergency assistance to flood victims in Kano and was assessing emergency needs in Jigawa. He said many of the displaced were poorly sheltered in school buildings or market places. There were fears, he added, that they could contract diseases such as malaria, pneumonia and cholera due to a combination of mosquitoes, cold and dirty water.