….says children placed under therapeutic feeding

By Gabriel Ewepu

ABUJA – AS people in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital and other communities struggle to cope with the devastating impact of flood that hit the State from Ngadda River, Save the Children, SCI, Nigeria, disclosed that over 150,000 children in 26 camps, and many disconnected from their families.

This was made known by the Country Director, SCI, Nigeria, Duncan Harvey, during a press conference held in Abuja, while speaking on his visit along with his team to assess the situation where they met with the Borno State Governor, Prof Babagana Zulum, who described the situation as “this disaster as the worst in living memory”, and also they met with the State Emergency Management Agency, UN officials, and others.

According to him (Harvey), over 1 million people across Borno State have been affected by the flash floods, with 400,000 displaced,of those, 300,000 have found shelter in 26 displacement camps, which on Friday from Bakassi camp, one of the largest camps, the conditions there are particularly harsh for children; overcrowding, and lack of basic services and shelter. 

Food and water are also in very short supply, despite the best efforts to scale up responses.

He said: “Our immediate concern is the short-term need for food, water, and shelter, especially for children and their families. 

“Additionally, we are supporting children who have been separated from their families. One of the most distressing things I witnessed in Bekasi camp was around 20 children who had been separated from their families. Our child protection team is working hard to reunite them with their families, while providing appropriate care in the meantime.

“We are particularly concerned because this disaster occurred during the lean season, when malnutrition is already at its peak. Many children were already malnourished before the flood, and now face even more severe challenges living in these camps. 

“The state government has shown impressive leadership in response efforts, and the coordination on the ground has been commendable. However, the conditions for children are dire, and there is an urgent need for more resources and stronger coordination to scale up life-saving interventions.

“We have about 200 staff working on the ground, collaborating with the Borno state government, the UN, and other international NGOs to respond as effectively as possible. Tomorrow, I’ll be meeting with the humanitarian country team, and we’ll be working to coordinate our resources to save as many lives as we can, with a particular focus on children.

“The governor described this disaster as the worst in living memory, and our sympathies are with everyone across Borno state. By joining our resources, we hope to minimize the loss of life and protect children in this crisis.

“There are 300,000 people registered in 26 camps established temporarily by the Borno State Government, we know that half of the population of the State is children. 

“So we can estimate that 150,000 of those people living in those camps are children, and that is a real cause for concern and then we continue to protect those children in terms of health and nutrition, make sure they have access to safe drinking water and appropriate care in place.”

However, he said children will be placed on therapeutic feeding to boost their nutritional needs,

“In one of the camps we are extending our therapeutic feeding programmes for underweight children, so we have an active screening programme, where we try to identify children who are malnourished, underweight, and we are working together with the Ministry of Health to identify those children and put them on therapeutic feeding programmes and also make sure they can recover as soon as possible. We are very concerned to scale up that programme.”

Meanwhile, he also disclosed that food rations have been distributed to 5,000 people which was initially 3,000 as a way of scaling it up over the last few days, which SCI is working with local vendors to provide prepackaged meals within the camps as key area of intervention for SCI.

He also said they are working on providing safe drinking water to children and other people in the camps.