Floods, rains kill 200, displace 82,000

Floods and rainstorms have killed more than 200 people this year and displaced at least 82,000 in various parts of Nigeria, humanitarian and government sources say. The latest victims include 11 pupils of a Koranic school in the northern city of Kano who died on Wednesday after the wall of their school collapsed on them during a rainstorm, local officials said. The tragedy has been blamed on the weakening of the mud wall by the rains. Figures released by the Nigerian Red Cross to IRIN on Thursday show that floods which ravaged the northern states of Kano and Jigawa earlier in the month claimed at least 200 lives and left 82,065 people displaced: 48,565 people were displaced in Kano while 20 died; in neighbouring Jigawa, 180 deaths were registered, 800 people were injured and 35,500 displaced. The total number of people affected, including those whose farmlands were washed away, exceeds 143,000, according to the figures. "Red Cross volunteers from the various divisions affected by the flooding carried out rescue services," a statement by the Red Cross said. "They assisted victims to move to safer places." Several communities on Nigeria’s southeastern coast were recently hit by floods which were reportedly caused by the opening of the sluice gates of dams in neighbouring Cameroon. And in another southeastern state, Akwa Ibom, the ocean overshot the shoreline and submerged more than 40 houses in the Bakassi local government area.