Floods: ’21 states’ have received relief items – Sadiya Umar-Farouq
AREWA AGENDA – The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar-Farouq has confirmed the distribution of relief items to 21 states affected by ravaging floods across the country.
Hajiya Umar-Farouq announced this at a news Briefing aimed at keeping the public abreast of response and interventions made so far by the ministry and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) on the flood situation nationwide.
The minister said distribution of food and non-food items to other states were already ongoing.
According to her, the 21 States that have already received relief materials are: Abia, Adamawa, Anambra, Bayelsa, Ekiti, Enugu, FCT, Imo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano and Kwara.
Others are : Lagos, Nassarawa, Niger, Ogun, Ondo, Oyo , Sokoto, Taraba and Yob.”
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She said although “specialised teams are on ground”, there are still some States and local governments that are inaccessible and hard to reach”.
To address the problem, she continued, the ministry started “working with the Military Disaster Response Units and other stakeholders with specialised skills and equipment to ensure that we use other means to reach hard-to-reach areas and people at risk”.
The Minister also said the Search-and-Rescue Operations have been “on their toes” since the flooding started and have continued to evacuate, relocate and refer victims to hospitals for immediate care.
She urged other stakeholders to join in efforts to assist affected flood victims.
As at October 24, this year, 3,219,780 people were reportedly affected by the flood – with 1,427,370 others becoming internally displaced, in addition to about 2,776 persons being injured, and approximately 612 other victims losing their lives.
Also, some 181,600 houses were partially damaged and another 123,807 were destroyed.
Similarly, 176,852 hectares of farmland was partially damaged while 392,399 hectares have been totally damaged.
Source: Radio Nigeria
