The United Nations (UN) said yesterday that at least 38 people had been killed and more than 92,000 left homeless by in floods in Niger, according to Nigeria's TVC News.
The latest figure is a huge jump from an figure of just 11,000 people having been displaced, which was reported by Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) on August 26.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Unocha) said the deaths followed torrential rains in August, TVC News reported, adding that more than 26,000 livestock had been lost and more than 9,000 homes destroyed.
MSF noted that many homeless families had been left sheltering in public buildings and that there was a big risk of malnutrition and communicable diseases such as malaria, diarrhoea, and respiratory ailments, especially as humanitarian groups had been overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the flooding that followed the heavy rains last month. So far aid has been given to more than 50 000 people, according to Unocha.
"We see that the families in this area, who are already have very little, have now lost everything. Despite the presence of government health facilities, many parents do not have the money for treatment for such illnesses as respiratory infections, diarrhoea and skin diseases" said Adolphe Masudi, MSF project manager for this intervention.
Floodlist.com had earlier reported that the worst affected regions were the desert areas of Tahoua in the west and Agadez in the north, according to Unocha.
