Nigeria floods: three million children in Borno state without school and exposed to child marriage, malnutrition and disease

MAIDUGURI, 19 September 2024 – All three million children in Borno state in Northeast Nigeria are without school indefinitely, increasing the likelihood of child marriage and other protection risks, after being hit by the worst floods in 30 years, Save the Children said [1].

More than 400,000 people have been uprooted from their homes across the state and tens of thousands of children are crammed into the buildings that have avoided damage, such as schools, as well as displacement camps. With little to no clean water and sanitation, diseases like cholera and diarrhea are spreading rapidly – among a population made vulnerable by high rates of malnutrition.

Data from last year showed 60% of children under five were already suffering from either moderate or severe acute malnutrition – and with stretches of farmland now destroyed by floodwater, this figure will likely increase without urgent action, Save the Children said.

Heavy rains have damaged 30 of Nigeria’s 36 states over the past month, killing 269 people and forcing 640,000 people from their homes [2]. In Borno state, heavy rains last week led to a breach in Alau Dam, which submerged half of the entire city of Maiduguri. Many of those affected had already been forced to move several times due to years of armed conflict, kidnappings and the impacts of climate change.

Borno state, with a population of about 6 million, is particularly vulnerable to impacts of the climate crisis, with creeping desertification swallowing up farmland in recent years, affecting the ability of communities to grow food. Several studies show that drought and desertification increase flood risk when there are heavy rains.

Following last week’s devastating floods, dozens of children are showing up in camps separated from their families, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, Save the Children said. Now that schools have been closed across the entire state, millions will be exposed to a higher risk of child labour, early marriage and other forms of abuse, and are more likely to be trapped in a cycle of poverty in the long term. 

Ibrahim, 14, from Borno state, said that children need world leaders to urgently ramp up climate action. He said: “Climate action needs to be prioritised. We don’t have another planet. Climate change is real and affects every single facet of our lives. It’s time to transition from actions to result.”

Duncan Harvey, Country Director of Save the Children in Nigeria, has just visited Maiduguri in Borno state. He said:

“This is a crisis upon a crisis – in an area where the creeping impacts of climate change were already putting food and clean water out of reach and malnutrition and disease was already rife among children.

“I have worked in the humanitarian sector for over 20 years and still, what I saw in Maiduguri shocked me to my core. Hundreds of thousands of children are crammed side by side in camps with no clean water, sanitation, food or healthcare. They are terrified and have lost everything – their homes, their belongings, sometimes their families.

“One of the most distressing things I saw was in one displacement camp where 22 children had been separated from their families. We are now making efforts with other agencies to reunify these children with family members, along with other strands of work to support affected children - but we need help from the Borno State Government and the federal government so that we can increase our support, and we need urgent funding from the international community.”

Save the Children is working in flood-affected communities in Maiduguri, providing lifesaving response and rehabilitation of affected communities. This includes providing cash assistance, setting up health and nutrition outreach services, the rehabilitation of sanitation facilities, and conducting hygiene promotion and community awareness raising. 

In the global response to the climate crisis, Save the Children is calling for national governments to rapidly phase out the use and subsidy of fossil fuels and ensure a just and equitable transition in order to limit warming temperatures to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels.

Leaders must also include the voices, needs and rights of children, particularly those affected by inequality and discrimination, in the global response to climate change, including in climate finance from higher-income countries to lower-income countries. At a practical level, this includes ensuring buildings like schools are more resilient to extreme weather events such as flooding so that children can learn safely.

ENDS

[1] Borno state has a projected population of about 6 million people. According to the UN, the child share of the population in Nigeria is 49%.

[2] UNHCR scrambles aid as devastating floods sweep Nigeria - Nigeria | ReliefWeb