Rebuilding shelter destroyed by fire

Nigeria | 2021 | CBPF

Nigeria, Madinatu camp. Amina lost her shelter and all her belongings in winter 2021, when a fire struck Madinatu camp. She has lived there for 7 years since fleeing violence on the west coast of Lake Chad. She and her family are among the 8.7 million people who needed humanitarian aid in Nigeria in 2021.

In winter 2021, fires in Madinatu and El-Miskin camps destroyed shelters, rendering thousands of people homeless.

The fire was suspected to have started from a makeshift cooking stove located too close to a shelter, due to overcrowding in camps.

Salient Humanitarian Organization, a national non-governmental organization (NGO) that coordinates and manages services for Madinatu and El-Miskin camps and is funded by the Nigeria Humanitarian Fund, acted quickly. Salient built new shelters for the families whose homes were destroyed. The organization distributed kits with non-food items to the families.

“We received…pots, mats, mattress, plates, buckets and bowls, soap and detergent,” Amina said. “When this incident occurred, you brought help to us.”

According to Suleiman Sanda, a Programme Officer Salient, “The Nigerian Humanitarian Fund came at the right time. The funding we received allowed us to mobilize our team to build 100 new shelters for those who lost everything. Without the funds, this would have been a nightmare.”

Read the original story here.

More information on the Nigeria Humanitarian Fund:
OCHA – POOLED FUNDS DATA HUB – By Country (unocha.org)
https://www.unocha.org/nigeria/about-nhf

‍