By Muhammad Amaan
A team comprising various organisations under the United Nations arrived in Maiduguri, Borno State on an assessment visit over the Alau Dam flood disaster.
The team which also comprised International and National NGOs led by UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Mr Mohamed Fall, visited camps to interact with victims also paid solidarity visits to Governor Babagana Umara Zulum and later interacted with the press.
Speaking, Fall assured the government and people of Borno of UN support in addressing the challenges.
“We are all with you in sympathy and solidarity and we will translate it into action.
“I want to tell you that we will not spare any of our resources in this response.
“We will refocus resources designed for some other interventions to see how we can bring them towards scaling up this response,” Fall said.
He said that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) would do a comprehensive post disaster assessment looking at setting up a recovery plan.
Responding, Governor Zulum thanked the UN delegation for its series of interventions in the state, while assuring the government commitment to collaborate with them.
The governor, who spoke on the magnitude of destruction caused by the flood, urged the UN agencies to first focus on the immediate needs of the victims such as food, health, shelter, water sanitation and hygiene.
“We need to immediately start fumigation of areas identified as safe to guard against outbreaks and to make them ready for people to go back to their homes.”
He said that some people using schools as camps need to be supported to go back to their homes within the shortest possible time to enable children to go back to school.
“Our children have suffered from lack of education for a long time due to insurgency and we cannot afford to miss this session completely.”
The governor said that with support from reliable partners, his administration would not allow the flood incident to deter it from pursuing its development plan.
The more than 414,000 people were displaced by the Tuesday’s devastating flood in Maiduguri.
The Head of Public Information, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Abuja, Ann Weru, stated this in a Media Advisory.
Weru said that the data was collected by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) as at September 11.
“NEMA’s records also show that 37 people died, and about 58 people sustained injuries,” she said.
Access to hospitals, schools and markets, she added, had been hampered.
“Damages to infrastructure, including bridges, were recorded. Evacuation of people in high-risk areas to safer ground is ongoing, amid concerns about the risk of disease outbreaks,” she said.
