•••Epidemic Threatens 27 Camps Due To Extreme Hunger, Lack of Drugs, Others
John Ugo, Awka
Two new babies were delivered in the IDP Camps in flood internally displaced people’s camp in Anambra State.
The Network gathered that the two babies were born two days ago in the state under desperate living conditions foisted on the people by flood.
Meanwhile, there is heightened tension at the 27 camps of internally displaced persons for victims of the three weeks long flodd disaster in Anambra State.
The flood has wreaked havoc in ten out of 21 local governemnt areas of Anambra state.
Already, stakeholders, residents, families and thousands of victims of the flood have cried out for the state, federal government, individuals and other organizations to come to their rescue.
In the past three weeks since the flood started, 25 deaths have been recorded while hundreds of residential homes, businesses, public and private institutions including churches, hospitals have been submerged and destroyed.
As a result of the massive flooding cutting across thousands of kilometers, the victims have been living in the open places.
The victims live in dirty and ramshackled camps provided for them by the state government without adequate drugs, food items and beddings thereby exposing thousands of the victims to possible outbreak of epidemic.
This is despite efforts by the State Governor, Prof Charles Soludo, to mitigate the plight of the victims scattered across the state.
A visit to some of the Internally Displaced Persons camps (IDPs) during the weekend indicated that the camps house an estimated 9,000 victims drawn from different local government area and communities.
On Saturday when our reporter visited some of the camps in Anambra East and Anambra West council’s, the victims had raised the alarm over the unbearable level of hunger, poor sanitary conditions, over-crowding, lack of drugs and absence of officials of the state Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) respectively.
Sadly, the 27 camps set up by the state government are discovered to be extremely crowded and at the mercy of cholera and typhoid epidemics as well as other contagious diseases.
Commissioner for Environment on the state, Mr Felix Odumegwu in reaction said, “We are aware that there could be an out break of epidemic in those holding camps which we call IDP camps given the number of displaced people in the camps; so we are observing the highest level of hygiene at the camps.
“We have sent people to carry out grass cutting at places that are over grown by weeds and the situation as it is today is one that we are not leaving anything to chance. We have the State Emergency Management Agency SEMA which has a steering committee headed by the Executive Secretary Mr Paul Odenigbo who is well experienced.”
Odumegwu noted that; “All the relevant ministries that have stake in this activity are well represented and at Bishop Crowder Camp we discovered that there was a leakage at the sewage system and it has been rectified while the Commissioner for Power and Public Utilities and his team have revived all the bore holes and has ensured steady power supply in those camps.
“The Commissioner for Health has been carrying out routine visits with his medical personnel to those holding camps and two days ago and yesterday we carried out a cesarian operation on a pregnant woman and she delivered her baby and also another woman delivered of a baby and she was rushed to the hospital and with the help of Dr Obiora the women and the babies are in good condition ” ; he said.
At Ogbaru Local Government Area, the 16 President Generals of the affected communities have expressed serious concerns over high state of hunger and starvation threatening the area which may stir sudden death among the aged men and women as well as little children in the area.
President General of Akili Ogidi community,?Comrade Chukwusa Michael said, “Our people do not have access to food and water and the worse hit are the old men and women in our towns as well as children and since the flood has washed away farm lands and even the markets where we can by food we have resigned to fate.
“We are appealing to everyone not just government alone to come to our assistance before we begin to record deaths of old people and children and we know that the state government is doing it’s best but we still cry for more due to the number of displaced people in Ogbaru local government area” he added.