The UN World Food Programme is working to assist newly displaced and food insecure people in northeast Nigeria who have been affected by severe floods.
Hundreds of thousands are in need of assistance in northeast Nigeria, after torrential rains caused a dam to collapse and flood the area on Tuesday.
The Alau Dam, situated just over 15 kilometers south of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, collapsed in the middle of the night, leaving 30 people dead and over a million people affected.
The dam’s collapse triggered some of the worst flooding in the state since the same dam collapsed 30 years ago, causing many residents to flee their homes. The state government attributed the disaster to the dam reaching full capacity due to unusually heavy rainfall.
Displacement and food insecurity
Emmanuel Bigenimana, head of the World Food Programme (WFP) office in Maiduguri, reported that he was able to fly over the city using a UN humanitarian air service (UNHAS) helicopter, dispatched by WFP to conduct a rapid assessment of damage and needs.
“What I have seen is really heartbreaking,” he said, describing homes, infrastructure, roads, schools, hospitals submerged by water. “Many people — over 200,000 to 300,000 — are displaced and overcrowded in various IDP (internally displaced persons) camps and on the streets.”
State police spokesperson Nahum Daso reported that about 15 percent of Maiduguri was underwater. The State Government issued evacuation orders for residents in the flooded areas and called for humanitarian support.
From the center of one of the IDP camps, Bigenimana said that the WFP had set up soup kitchens to provide hot meals to those affected and was expanding its response in coordination with authorities and partners.
According to WFP, the soup kitchens located in three camps — Teachers’ Village, Asheikh and Yerwa — aim to provide nutritious hot meals to 50,000 people who have lost their homes but more assistance is needed.
The impacts of extreme weather are being felt severely across the country. Some 800,000 people in 29 states in Nigeria have been affected by floods as of September 2024, WFP said, and over 550,000 hectares of cropland have been flooded. As of March 2024 around 32 million people were already facing acute hunger.
The UN’s food agency stated that it needs €133.5 million to support food-insecure populations in Nigeria’s northeast over the next six months.
For the flood-affected populations in Maiduguri, Bigenimana warned that “recovery will take a long time.” He emphasised the need for more resources to save lives, address immediate crises, and plan for longer-term recovery and solutions.
