The oil-rich communities of Polobubo and Tsekelewu in Warri North Local Government Area of Delta State were thrown into mourning during the weekend as ravaging flood claimed the lives of three of their children.
This is coming as the community leaders have pointed accusing fingers on Chevron Nigeria Limited for being behind the reason why there is always flood in the communities.
BusinessDay gathered that the three children between the ages of two and four drowned in the water that covered the community.
One of the bereaved parent, Mr David Suku, who lost two of his children to the flood said the children wondered off while they were playing and fell into the water and drowned.
Meanwhile the National Secretary of Polobubo National Council, Midwest Kukuru, who spoke to BusinessDay after a tour of the communities, said the communities were being flooded every year because of a canal Chevron dug from the Atlantic Ocean some years ago.
He said the canal has made the Rivers in the communities to be silted bringing in salt water that has destroyed the aquatic life in their rivers.
He therefore called on the Federal Government to prevail on Chevron to block the canal and reclaim their land for them.
“Before now the river we have here was a natural River without salt. The River was a natural habitat. We started having problems here when oil exploration started. This problem was caused by Chevron when they dug a canal from the Atlantic ocean to this community. Now all the silt that is coming from the Atlantic ocean are now deposited into the community through the canal Chevron dug. As a result of this, whenever it rains the whole community is flooded because more water is deposited in the community.
“The river you traversed to this town used to be averagely deep; as deep as 10 meters, before the advent of oil exploration activities by oil companies. Today, this same river has been silted to less than a metre in depth during the dry season. The freshwater has been replaced by salt water from the Atlantic Ocean, destroying economic trees and vegetation that provided the people with lucrative livelihood.
“We are appealing to the Federal and state government and the world to prevail on Chevron to block the canal that they have dug and also dregded the river for us so that the river can be deep agian.
“We are also appealing to the Federal Government to prevail on Chevron to reclaim our land for us so that the people of Sekelewu and Polobubo will have a home to stay. This is the only solution to this perennial flood that we are having. We all know that the flood we had last year was not as worse as the one we are having today.
They also appealed to Federal Government to send relief materials to them to cushion the effect of the flood as their means of livelihood had been destroyed.
“Our people are suffering. All our fishing ponds this year were flooded and all the fishes inside the ponds escaped. Our means of livelihood have been destroyed by the flood,” Kukuru said.
Also speaking on the effect of the flood on the communities, the Medical Director of the only Cottage Hospital in the community, Dr Itimi Terry lamented that the flood has taken over the hospital and had made medical services nearly impossible.
