Once-shuttered camps in Borno reopen to house flood victims
As thousands in the northern Nigerian state are displaced for a second time, experts say its time to focus on building resilience.
- 20 November 2024
- 9 min read
- by Jesusegun Alagbe
On the night of 9 September, 58-year-old Musa Bakari woke up from his sleep to discover a surprise visitor. His apartment had been invaded by water: lots of it. He wanted to be sure he was not dreaming, so he turned on the light. His bed, clothes, furniture and electronics were all wet.
Outside, the neighbourhood was quiet, so he raised the alarm, waking everybody up. In the middle of the night, they packed the few belongings that could be salvaged and fled.
By morning, most parts of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, in north-east Nigeria, had been immersed in water, throwing residents into panic and despair. Posts on social media showed schools, homes, farmlands, banks, hospitals and religious houses submerged. In some areas of the city, only the roofs of buildings could be seen popping out of the muddy waters.
While Bakari and his family were able to escape on time, thousands were trapped in the floodwaters until emergency responders and soldiers came in trucks and canoes to fetch them. But not everybody could be rescued immediately – some victims reported climbing up trees and hanging off of the branches for hours.
“I was fast asleep, but something tickled me to wake up,” Bakari, a resident of Fori in Maiduguri, recalled, speaking to VaccinesWork. “I felt it was the dampness of my bed. At first, I thought it was rain droplets, but when I looked again, I noticed the water was from beneath.” Over a month later, Bakari is still displaced, having lost most of his belongings to the floods. He now lives at Tashan Bama Camp, one of several camps opened for people affected by the floods.
“The floods have sent us away from our homes. It was a devastating experience for me and my family because we lost many of our possessions, but at least we are happy to survive. We had to trek for about two hours to reach the camp,” he said.
Climate change, a collapsed dam and devastation
The floods that hit Borno State were the worst Maiduguri town had seen in 30 years, according to government authorities. They were triggered following the collapse of the Alau Dam, located in Konduga a few kilometres from the capital city.
The dam was built between 1984 and 1986 to provide water for irrigation and domestic purposes for the people of Maiduguri, as well as to help control flooding from the Ngadda River, which occasionally receives excessive inflows from water sources that trace back to vast Lake Chad.
According to officials, the dam collapsed due to overflowing, following climate change-intensified rainfall. By the end of September, the floods had left 37 persons dead, 58 persons injured, over 400,000 residents displaced, and more than one million affected in other ways. The prison had been affected, leading to a jailbreak, and flood-damage to the Sanda Kyarimi Park Zoo led to the death or escape of 80% of the wild animals housed there.
“Climate change has come to stay, but we can reduce its impact if we – both the government and individuals – take the necessary measures.”
- Professor Abel Adebayo, climate change scientist
Flooding is not unusual in Borno State. However, the phenomenon is worsening by the year due to the effects of climate change, said Professor Abel Adebayo, a climate change researcher at Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola, Adamawa State, in north-east Nigeria.
“Environmental disasters like [the recent] flooding are an outcome of climate change, and there are two responses to the phenomenon: we can either mitigate against it or adapt to it. Mitigation works to prevent an event from happening or minimise its effects, but when an event is already happening, you have to look for ways to adapt to it,” Adebayo said.
“However, there is a human component to events like that. For example, developments around the river banks or flood plains are a common thing now. It is shocking to see people developing residential and commercial buildings around flood plains. Also, in many urban centres in Nigeria, drainages are blocked and not properly maintained by households and communities. Indiscriminate deforestation is also a big problem – trees along river banks and in the forests are being cut down to either pave the way for real estate development or production of charcoal. These are human activities that worsen or trigger climate-change disasters.”
Displaced again
Borno State, the epicentre of the Boko Haram insurgency in northern Nigeria, has been dotted with internally displaced person (IDP) camps for years. But in 2019, state governor Babagana Zulum started shutting down the camps and encouraging residents to return home. Only four camps were reportedly left operating in the meantime.
The aim was to reposition the image of Borno State from that of a place battered by conflict to that of a hub for economic and social development. Zulum said he worried that the camps were becoming permanent slum settlements.
However, as the latest disaster struck, the state government was obliged to reopen once-closed camps to accommodate a fresh wave of displaced residents – this time ousted from their homes by a different kind of threat.
Bakari numbers among hundreds of thousands commencing a second stint in an IDP camp.
“I can’t fathom this is happening again. It brings back the woeful memories of living as an IDP in Dalori to escape the horrors of Boko Haram. I never thought I would be in an IDP camp again all my life, but the floods have resurrected the Boko Haram memories. I don’t wish to stay here for long, but having lost most of my possessions to the floods, my hope looks dashed,” Bakari said. “But I know we will bounce back like we did after Boko Haram,” he added.
“Living and working in the camp is not something that gives me joy because it is perhaps a symbol of helplessness,” Bakari went on. “Some of us were trying to get our lives back after resettling. I never expected to return to a camp. It is frustrating to witness. Many people here were like me. They were readjusting their lives, but the floods have left them once more devastated.”
Forty-year-old Bukar Babagana, who is a security officer at Tashan Bama Camp, is likewise disappointed to have returned to a chapter he had thought closed.
“We were just resettling in our communities and no one expected to come and live or work at an IDP camp again. But here we are. My job entails securing the lives and property of the people. Though this is not what we wanted, I believe this phase will end quickly and not turn out, as the case with Boko Haram insurgency when we lived in camps for years,” he told VaccinesWork.
Daudu Musa, 60, described it as “unbelievable” to find himself back in an IDP camp.
“The situation is pathetic. Imagine leaving your home and property due to foreseen circumstances like floods to stay in a place that is not comfortable. I have been in this camp for a month-plus without hope of when I’m going back home because I have lost everything I have to the floods. The question I keep asking myself is, where will I start from?” he said. “But looking back on how we survived Boko Haram and rebuilt our lives, I am hopeful we shall rebuild our lives again after this episode.”
Similarly, Hawau Idris, 45, a resident of Old Maiduguri told VaccinesWork said she felt “uncomfortable” at the camp. “Sometimes I stay for days without using the toilet because I'm scared of contracting infections,” she said. “I am optimistic, though, that things will return to normal and we will leave this camp again for a normal life.”
Relief efforts
Since September, several local and international humanitarian organisations, the federal and state governments, foreign countries, the military, businesses and individuals have risen to the occasion, providing food aid and other material support to the flood victims.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), however, said in an assessment report that limited funding was constraining the scale of support provided. As of 29 October, OCHA said the flood response and the Humanitarian Response Plan for north-east Nigeria remained massively underfunded, stating that the plan had received about US$ 517 million of the US$ 926 million required.
“In the long-term, it is critical to also address underlying causes of vulnerability and help build [people’s] resilience to climate shocks, for example, by investing in early warning systems, strengthening ageing infrastructure, and limiting construction on flood-prone areas,” Zinta Zommers, OCHA’s Climate Science and Practice Lead, said in the report.
Controlling disease outbreaks
One key aspect of climate adaptation – that is, for building resilience – is public health provision. Camps are environments prone to disease outbreaks, and that risk is only elevated amid flooding, which can drive transmission of both waterborne and vector-borne illnesses.
To complicate matters, vital health care infrastructure had taken a hit. In Borno, the State Cold Store – a vital transit node for vaccines entering the state – was flooded on the night of 10 September. More than 25 primary health care facilities took damage that forced them to suspend services.
But with outbreaks threatening, local and international organisations like UNICEF and WHO worked fast to get vaccines to the most vulnerable. By 19 September, UNICEF was able to report that immunisation services – staffed by a diverse alliance of partners – were up and running in 11 camps, with 1.1 million doses of vaccine to protect against a diverse spread of pathogens already delivered.
Dauda Muhammad, a disaster management official with the Nigeria Red Cross Society – an important provider of medical relief in Borno’s IDP camps – told VaccinesWork:“The people are facing a lot of challenges, especially health issues. They are exposed to diseases as a result of the floods, and for this reason, we have deployed our health officers to different camps to provide the displaced people with medical services.”
Cholera is one example of such a disease, and cases have risen across the northern states of Borno, Adamawa, Jigawa, Yobe and Kano since the flooding. But UNICEF has reportedly delivered more than 600,000 doses of Gavi-funded cholera vaccines to the Borno State Government to mitigate that spread – especially within the IDP camps.
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Preventing future floods
Adebayo, the climate change scientist at the Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola, said it was time to take action to minimise the effects of climate change disasters like floods.
“Every year, the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) predicts events like flooding for every local government area in the country, and the predictions have always been accurate to a large extent. With the information, every local or state government has the opportunity to prepare ahead of time to prevent or minimise flooding,” Adebayo said.
“Regarding flooding, the integrity of the dams should be checked regularly, and new dams should be built to retain excess water and prevent people’s homes from being flooded. For instance, if the Alau Dam had been properly maintained, the effects of the Borno flooding would not have been severe. Climate change has come to stay, but we can reduce its impact if we – both the government and individuals – take the necessary measures.”
