ECHO empowers 1100 households affected by flood disaster in Kogi, says Red Cross

The European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO), intervention project , through the international Federation of Red Cross and Crescent Society (IFRC) has given relief items to no fewer than 1100 households who were victims of the 2024 flood disaster.

The support was provided by ECHO through the IFRC, under its intervention project.

Abdullahi Abubakar , acting secretary, Kogi State Branch of the Nigeria Red Cross, disclosed this on Friday when his team visited the flood-affected Edegaki Community in Kogi Local Government Area, adding that the IFRC had implemented series of humanitarian interventions under the ECHO project, and that the visit was to get feedback from beneficiaries.

He noted that ECHO through its intervention project, had provided relief and recovery support to thousands of flood-affected households in Kogi, Delta and Anambra states, pointing out that 1100 households drawn from three most affected local governments areas, including Idah, Kogi and Lokoja Local Governments Areas, have benefited from the project.

“The relief items distributed included; 20-liter jerry cans, buckets, Aqua tabs and ATM preloaded with N77,000 for each benefiting household.

“Three communities including; Alla-Ogane, Alla-Atenoguma and Alla-Ichala, comprising 300 households were covered in Idah; while four communities including Galilee, Sarkin Noma, Edo and Kampe, with 400 households benefited from Lokoja.

“In Kogi Local Government, four communities of Ogbangede, Irenodu, Onumaye/Edimose and Edegaki, with 400 households benefited from the initiative.

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“The beneficiaries were selected based on criteria such as aged 60 and above, sick persons, people with disability (PWDs) and pregnant mothers, while communities most affected by the flood from each of the three Local Government Areas were selected as well.

“Nigeria Red Cross Society took it upon themselves, we took two speed boats and went on water to identify most of these communities for us to get the real people that are affected”.

“We set out criteria to enable us to reach the most vulnerable because without that, we cannot really cover everybody.

“The criteria enabled us to resize the number of people to meet up with our target, and after picking these people, we came out with communities that were worse hit,” he said.

Responding on behalf of the Edegaki community, Ahmed Ibrahim, assistant community leader, who is also a beneficiary, thanked the ECHO, the Nigeria Red Cross and partners for providing the items to mitigate the devastating flood effects on their livelihoods.

“Whenever there is a flood, this entire community will be overrun by the flood, right from time, we always had promises from other NGOs that they are coming to intervene. Sometimes they will come for registration, and even ask for tips before we can get registered and at the end of the day, nothing happened.

“We want to show our appreciation to the Nigeria Red Cross Society and other people who made it a point of duty to distribute these items to us and also train us on how to use them,” Ibrahim said.

Other beneficiaries, Amina Abdulkareem, Yengbani Ali, Mariam Mohammed and Zainab Yusuf, all appreciated ECHO and Nigeria Red Cross and their partners for coming to their aid , saying that the gesture had enabled them to pay their children’s school fees, repair their houses after flood, buy food to eat, as well as drink clean water.