Heavy rains in recent weeks have killed at least three people and displaced thousands in northern Nigeria where entire villages have been submerged and farms destroyed, officials said Wednesday.
“We lost a whole village and its crop fields to the flood,” said Hassan Suleiman, a director in Katsina state emergency relief agency.
Seven states have been affected by flooding, officials said.
At least three people were killed Monday and over 2,000 others made homeless from flooding in Katsina state, officials said. The destruction of the village resulted in two deaths and 400 displaced.
Another 1,700 were displaced in the town of Dutsin-Ma when a dam broke and flooded more than 200 homes, said Suleiman.
In neighbouring Jigawa State, flooding submerged 25 villages, displacing 7,000 people and washing away 3,000 hectares of crops in the last two weeks, Umar Kyari, the state governor’s spokesman, told AFP.
A river burst its banks due to torrential rains, inundating the 25 villages along its banks, Kyari said.
The flooding swept away more than 2,000 farms and destroyed crops in neighbouring Kano state’s Gabasawa district, according to Sabo Nanono, who heads Kano state’s farmers’ union.
Local officials said that more than 3,000 people were displaced two weeks ago when two villages in Kano were hit by flooding.
Hundreds were also displaced while more than 2,000 farms were destroyed three weeks ago following flooding in Gummi town in northwestern Zamfara State, residents said.
The floods came despite predictions of low rainfall in the north for this year’s rainy season from Nigeria’s meteorological agency, which had previously warned that more than 12 million people in the region could face food shortages as a result.