The Ghana Red Cross Society, GRCS, and the National Disaster Management Organization, NADMO, have jointly responded to the needs of flood victims in the Kassena-Nankana Municipality and the Builsa North District of the Upper East Region.
Officers of the NADMO and GRCS Volunteers undertook inspection visits to affected communities and registered those affected including houses that collapsed resulting from the incessant rains in the area.
Thereafter, some relief items were secured and accordingly distributed to some of the victims while awaiting more supplies for further distribution.
The Upper East Regional Directorate of the Information Service Department has joined a team from the GRCS on a fieldtrip to Sandema where four tents were mounted for four households who were displaced by the torrential rains.
Each tent had the capacity of containing a family size of about six people with adequate ventilation.
The four include Mr. Akperibanopo Atimbiik’s family of three and the household of Mr. Amoak Anyominyeka comprising 11 members both in the Bilinsa Community as well as the families of Mr. Ayomah Anyanoi in Fankunsa, seven family members, and that of Mr. Kwame Akamakos whose five relations, including his brother, wife and children had all gone to put up with distant relatives elsewhere.
The National Disaster Management Coordinator of the GRCS, Mr. Saladin Sumani Mahama after the day’s activities, disclosed that his outfit had so far deployed 20 tents to the Upper East Region to help provide temporal shelter for persons who were displaced as a result of the floods.
He further disclosed that 16 of such tents had already been erected for some families in Kologo-Tor and Kologo-Zuo communities in the Kassena-Nankana Municipality.
Mr. Saladin noted that majority of people whose homes got destroyed in the floods, were living in school structures but observed that with schools now re-opened, there was the urgent need to provide adequate temporal housing facilities so that the affected persons could move out for academic work to continue.
He reiterated that the Red Cross’ main objective was to alleviate human sufferings in times of disasters and that, while his outfit intervened with all that it had, it was imperative for other stakeholders such as Members of Parliament, philanthropic individuals, business entities and NGOs to also come on board.
He explained that the tents were expensive to procure and that, they were only meant to give temporal accommodation for the displaced families over a reasonable period of time during which, things would have normalized and the tents retrieved for keeps by the Red Cross for future deployment during emergencies of a similar sort.
He revealed that similar assistance had been sent to flood-hit areas in the Bongo and Bawku West districts and that, they were yet mobilizing to deploy such make-shift tents to other affected areas in Pusiga district and its environs.
According to Mr. Saladin, the GRCS has been embarking on campaigns and trainings for disaster risk reduction instead of waiting for disasters to happen and to run around in search of reactionary solutions.
Meanwhile, earlier in his brief remarks, the Builsa North District NADMO Director, Bismark Abakisi told the Red Cross that, a total of 7000 people had been displaced in the district while several acres of farms were submerged in flood waters.
Story by Ayammah Samuel
