Nigeria officials claim that at least 150 people have died as a result of the floods caused by heavy rains that hit Mokwa, a mercantile city in the state of Niger, in the northern region of the country.
Ibrahim Hussainini, spokesman for the State Emergency Management Agency, CNN That 151 bodies, including “many children”, were recovered until 09h00, local time, (5am, Brasília time) this Saturday (31).
Hussainini said, adding that the number of dead can increase as rescue teams are looking for more bodies.
Hassan Abdullahi, a 26 -year -old resident of Mokwa, told CNN who lost nine family members, including his elderly mother, and two nieces and nieces aged 4 to 8, when the floods hit the house where they lived.
“I feel so bad. As I would like to be able to bring them (back) alive, but there is no way,” said Abdullahi. He also said that none of the family’s belongings were recovered from the flood.
“We lost everything. We don’t have a single clothes or shoe. We have nowhere to sleep. We are in a lot of pain,” he said.
Flood surprised residents
The West African (Nema) disaster assistance agency reported that floods hit the KPEGE neighborhood of Mokwa on Thursday morning (29), “when residents were almost all sleeping.”
Niger’s state government stated that the “deadly disaster of the flood” devastated two communities in the city “after several hours of torrential rain”, resulting in the “loss of many lives” and the submersion of housing.
Northern Nigeria is prone to annual floods that often cause deaths and displacements.
Last year, weeks of flooding in the same region caused more than 200 deaths and shifted more 386,000 people, according to Nema data, shared with the CNN.
The area was also affected in 2022, when Nigeria recorded the worst flood in over a decade.
On the occasion, more than 600 people died across the country and more than 1 million people were forced to leave the houses.
