Thousands made homeless by shanty fire

Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) on Thursday began distributing relief supplies to thousands of people made homeless by a fire that destroyed homes in a shanty town of the Nigerian economic capital, Lagos. Officials of the relief agency, assisted by the Nigerian Red Cross, distributed mainly non-food items, including tent materials, plates and buckets, to people affected by the blaze. Water was supplied by bowsers, while some food rations were scheduled to be distributed later in the day. NEMA estimated that some 5,000 people lost their homes in the fire, which broke out on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday in Okobaba, a settlement of wood and corrugated metal shacks perched on stilts in the shallow waters on the edge of the Lagos lagoon. NEMA officials at the scene of the fire said on Wednesday that dozens of people had been treated for burns and minor injuries but no deaths had been reported. Plans had been initiated to provide displaced people with temporary accommodation, they said. Residents of the shanty said they did not know how the fire started. Many believed, however, that it might have been caused by an upturned candle or kerosene lamp. “I suddenly heard shouting outside and when I came out I saw the fire was already burning the neighbouring house,” Imade Okunola, a resident told IRIN. “It quickly caught mine as well and I only escaped with my life.” He said the flames were fed by mini-explosions in several of the buildings as stocks of kerosene and petrol were heated by the fire. People in the shanty town used kerosene and petrol for cooking and to run small generators and grinders, Okunola said. Angry residents stoned the motorcade of Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu when he visited the scene of the disaster on Wednesday afternoon. Tinubu said the people in the affected area were squatters and that his government would design a new housing plan for it. Lagos, with an estimated population of 15 million, is the biggest city in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. The West African nation has more than 120 million people and over the past three decades, millions have migrated to the city from rural areas. Many of them have been unable to find or pay for decent accommodation, and are forced to live in shanty towns like Okobaba, which lack basic amenities and are vulnerable to disasters such as Wednesday’s fire.