More than four million people have been affected by floods in six countries in western and central Africa, the World Health Organization said.
The floods – the richest in recent years with an unprecedented scale and severity – have hit Cameroon, Chad, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Nigeria, and displaced more than 500,000 people, destroyed more than 300,000 houses and claimed more than 1,000 lives, said the – WHO. in a statement this weekend.
Residents of Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria’s fragile state of Borno, say they have seen it all: houses washed away down to the last brick, inmates fleeing the city’s main prison as its walls are eroded by water from an overflowing dam. , dead bodies of crocodiles and snakes float among human bodies on highways.
Saleh Bukar, 28, from Maiduguri, said he was woken up by his neighbors last week at midnight.
“Water is everywhere!” he remembered their loud screams when they talked on the phone. “They were shouting: ‘Get out everyone, get out everyone!'” The elderly and disabled people don’t know what’s going on, he said, while others stay behind.
Those who did not wake up immediately drowned.
Although Africa accounts for a small proportion of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, it is among the regions most vulnerable to extreme weather, the World Meteorological Organization said earlier this month. In sub-Saharan Africa, the cost of adapting to extreme weather conditions is estimated at between $30-50 billion per year over the next decade, the report said. It warned that as many as 118 million Africans could be affected by extreme weather by 2030.
Maiduguri was under a lot of stress even before the floods. In the last decade, Borno has been hit by a series of terrorist attacks by Boko Haram, who want to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria and have killed more than 35,000 people in the last decade.
Survivors recount chilling scenes of corpses in floodwaters.
Aishatu Ba’agana, a mother of three, had to abandon her newborn baby as the water flooded her house and overwhelmed her.
“I shouted to my family to help me find my child, but I don’t know if they were able to.
Boat trips cost more than a month’s salary
The flood also destroyed important infrastructure, including two large dams near Lake Alau. When the dam failed, 540 billion liters of water flooded the city. Important bridges connecting Maiduguri collapsed, turning the city into a makeshift river.
Many residents rely on boats.
Falmata Muhammed, a 48-year-old mother of three, said she decided to transport furniture this week but was shocked when the boat owner charged her about $50 US for the short trip, more than a month’s minimum wage.
After losing almost everything due to the floods, it saddened him that “some people are doing big business, they are using this disaster to make a lot of money.”
Floods in mostly dry Niger have affected more than 841,000 people, killed hundreds and displaced more than 400,000.
Harira Adamou, a 50-year-old single mother of six, is one of them. He said the floods destroyed his mud house in the north of Agadez city.
“The rooms have collapsed, the walls have collapsed,” he said. “It is very dangerous to live in a mud house but we don’t have the means to build concrete.”
Adamou, who is unemployed and lost her husband four years ago, said she has never received government support and has not found the opportunity – or the means – to emigrate. She and her children are living in a temporary shelter near their destroyed house, and are worried that heavy rains may return.
“I understood that there is a change in the climate,” he said. “I have never seen as much rain as this year here in Agadez.”
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