By Ikeugonna Eleke
Flood victims in Anambra State have cried to the state and federal governments for help, describing their plight in various IDP camps as unbearable.
This is just as the Anambra State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) has embarked on an assessment tour of various communities affected by flood disasters in order to ascertain water levels.
The assessment, which was carried out at Ogbaru, Anambra East and Anambra West LGAs, was to help SEMA to present situation reports to the state government.
SEMA Executive Director, Mr Cyprian Agupugo, represented by the Executive Assistant to the Governor on SEMA (Media), Mr Emeka Obinwa, said that with the rising level of water, more victims had been moved into Holding Centres.
‘The situation of things has driven many victims into the holding centres. This is what we saw at Atani and some of the victims go about their daily activities and retire to the centres.
‘The rising level of water witnessed in recent times, have orchestrated a surge in the number of victims. Some of the flood victims called for help, saying that to their surprise, instead of the flood to recede, it has continued to increase, thereby causing more people in the area to run to the camps.
‘They complained that the increasing number of displaced persons has made it difficult for them to feed as the available space, sleeping materials, and, even food, we’re not enough,’ Agupugo said.
The Chairman, 2019 Flood Relief Committee, Ogbaru LGA, Mr Nnamdi Esimai, complained that instead of the water to recede, it was increasing. He said that with the number of victims, they had increased to more than the original number in the camps.
Esimai pleaded with the state government to provide more relief materials, especially food items, as the people had been worried and hungry.
One of the displaced persons, Mrs Ebele Nwachukwu, pleaded with government for more aids in food items to save them and their children from starvation.
‘Our children no longer go to school because a child here, in the holding centre, was almost carried away by floodwaters on his way from school,’ she said.
