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 comprised international and national non-governmental organisations led by UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Mohamed Fall, arrived in Maiduguri on Saturday.

The team which visited camps to interact with victims also paid solidarity visits to Governor Babagana Zulum and later interacted with journalists.

Speaking, Mr Fall assured the government and people of Borno of UN support in addressing the challenges.

Mr Fall said, “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.”

He said that the United Nations Development Programme would do a comprehensive post-disaster assessment looking at setting up a recovery plan.

Responding, Mr Zulum thanked the UN delegation for its series of interventions in the state, assuring that the government was committed to collaborating with them.

Mr Zulum, 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.

He stated, “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 needed to be supported to return to their homes within the shortest possible time to enable their children to go back to school.

He noted, “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 added that with support from reliable partners, his administration would not allow the flood incident to deter it from pursuing its development plan.

More than 414,000 people were displaced by Tuesday’s devastating flood in Maiduguri.

The Head of Public Information, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Abuja, Ann Weru, stated this in a Media Advisory.

Ms Weru said that the data was collected by the National Emergency Management Agency as of September 11.

“NEMA’s records also show that 37 people died, and about 58 people sustained injuries,” she said.

She added that access to hospitals, schools and markets had been hampered.

Ms Weru stated, “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.” 

(NAN)