The Foundation for Human Rights and Anti-corruption Crusaders (FOHURAC) has lamented the neglect of flood ravaged communities in Niger Delta, stressing that there is urgent need for the federal and state governments to come to the rescue of people in the area.
Barrister Alaowei E. Cleric, FOHURAC National President, in a statement issued on Wednesday at the end of the group’s visitation of the flood ravaged areas, maintained that governments’ responses to the disaster had been poor as the victims had been languishing under most unhealthy condition.
He said: “The public needs to be informed of the pathetic situation the communities have been subjected into because of the flood. Our team discovered that the responses of the governments at all levels to the plight of these communities are very poor.
“All of the communities visited by our team, only few of them received relief materials from the Local Government Councils.”
According to him, the team visited Warri South West, Warri North, Bomadi, Patani and Burutu local government areas and discovered that only in few of them were the flood victims taken good care of by the councils.
Cleric stressed: “In Burutu LGA, the council only sent relief materials to four communities in a place of over 70 communities. The Local Government chairmen of Warri North, Warri South, Burutu, Bomadi and Patani LGAs did not show any concern by visiting these communities to ascertain the level of damage.
“In the same vein, no state or Federal Government team has visited these communities, unlike what is being done in the upland areas. The riverine communities have been left to their fate to suffer the excruciating effects of the flood.
“We cannot rule out epidemics and acute starvation as we earlier alerted the world. Just three days ago, a lady lost her one-year-old child to the invading flood at Bubougbene community in Burutu LGA.
“The lackadaisical attitude of the governments at all levels towards these communities is aggravating the whole situation. We are made to understand that the Delta State government has set up a flood management committee to cater for the victims of the flood.
“Our grouse is why are the riverine communities not being considered in the government’s programme? Are they not part of the state?”
He stressed that over 20% of the population of Delta State from the riverine part had been affected by the flood, lamenting that in some of these areas, the situation had become so pathetic that parents had to evacuate their children to safer places such as Warri and other upland cities in the state, while many other communities had been deserted.
Cleric stated that since the state government had constituted a Flood Management Committee, people had been expecting it would build camps for the internally displaced people (IDPs) in the affected areas to evacuate people from the affected areas.
He lamented the complete abandonment of the victims, which he said was not the case in upland areas, adding that if nothing was done to reduce the sufferings in the affected communities, the governments should be ready to give mass burials to the riverine dwellers in Delta State.
“We are calling on the international community, people of goodwill, international donors, the Red Cross Society, religious organisations, federal and Delta State governments to come to the aid of these communities. A stitch in time they say saves nine,” Cleric said.
