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    Posted September 24, 2012 by
    Phee1
    Location
    aika ezeolu, delta state, Nigeria
    Assignment
    Assignment
    This iReport is part of an assignment:
    Severe weather

    The Aika Ezeolu Flooding

     

    CNN PRODUCER NOTE     iReporter Phee1 sent in these videos, captured by his father, of flooding in the tiny village of Aika Ezeolu in the Niger Delta in Nigeria. The submerged houses belong to his father. "It happens every year and we have had many family houses swallowed up by the flooding," says our iReporter, who is currently studying in Cambridge, England. "It happens because the rains are heavy and uncontrolled, this year it got bad because the dams were opened." Luckily, he says his father and other relatives were unharmed in the flooding. Thousands of people have been reported displaced by the rains and flooding in several Nigerian states, while large swathes of farmland have also been submerged.
    - sarahbrowngb, CNN iReport producer

    Nobody knows of this little village called Aika Ezeolu, along The River Niger Delta State, Nigeria, it cannot be found on any map on-line. Due to this the people continue to suffer because nobody knows about them and so nobody can hear their stories. With the coronation of the new King a December 2011, the people have gotten a little coverage but they continue to suffer because nobody can hear their cries. They have no form civilization as the only means of transportation is a path made out of the forest during the dry season and the river Niger during the rains. Nigeria has two seasons, the rainy and the dry seasons, the rains in the Niger Delta starts as early as March and ends by October. Due to the prolonged heavy rains the people along the River Niger tend to suffer a lot of flooding, losing their crops and means of livelihood every year to the flood. Despite this, their love for their land is unequalled and they would never leave their homes despite the flood, the found ways to live around it, until the the dry season made its way back in November to dry up all the water. This year would be a different story, the people have been forced to leave their homes as the floods have been terrible this year, with heavy rains and the release of water from the dams, the people have been forced out of their homes, forced to seek refuge in other places. The video you are about to see is of my father's house, ordinarily since the house isn't close to the river side the flood is usually just almost knee high. But this year it is different, the house has almost been swallowed up by the flood and the flood is up to people's necks. This is a cry to the world to save save us, we have lived with the flood in this oil rich region for years but this year it seems to have succeeded in forcing us out. This is the plight of Aika Ezeolu and the many towns that surround her.

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