Lake Chad: Flood Waters Inundate Isolated Nigerian Community

Torrential rain has caused the Komadougou Yobe river to overflow its banks and pour into temporary shelters housing returning displaced people in Nigeria’s northeastern town of Mallam Fatori.  

The river, which discharges into Lake Chad, has flooded several Nigerian and Nigerien communities in the region. 

Mallam Fatori, the headquarters of the Abadam local government, was reoccupied earlier in the year when 4,000 Nigerian refugees residing in the Bosso area of Niger’s Diffa region were resettled. 

They were kept in temporary shelters in the town after authorities had conducted some level of work on facilities and infrastructure as part of the Borno state government resettlement policy. 

However, the action has also led to concerns due to the continued security challenges in the area, which has contributed to a lack of livelihood and access to basic needs and humanitarian assistance.

HumAngle has learned that the resettled residents are in need of support to mitigate the impact of the flooding and help with food and other relief materials.

Last year, the United Nations humanitarian body disclosed that more than 100,000 people who fled the area were living as refugees in Niger. Some internally displaced persons from Abadam have been relocated from the state capital, Maiduguri, to Damasak town. 

In Diffa, southeast of the Niger republic, the Komadougou Yobe river, originating from Nigeria, has swept through communities and farmlands.  The UN humanitarian body reports that thousands of people were affected, and large areas of crop fields for sorghum, cowpea, rice, cabbage, onion, and others were submerged.