The Latest Melting Pot in Guirvidig Resettlement Camp

Six villages have been bundled into one as all attention is being directed towards their survival.

The inhabitants of Simatou, Silawe, Tabadai, Ziam I, Ziam II and Ziam III from the Maga Sub Division have become one people with a common problem and a common solution. These people who were ejected from their family niches about three weeks ago by a surprisingly overwhelming flood from the Maga dam, first settled in a school building at Guirvidig, about 25 kilometres from Maga before being resettled in a camp at the little village of Farahoulou, still in Guirvidig.

Thanks to the assistance of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, 88 tents have been erected in a field as vast as three football fields put together. Four to five people have been attributed a tent. The resettlement space is enough to host more than three times the number of the portable shelters each stretched over supporting framework of poles with ropes and pegs. All efforts are being channelled to ensure that the refugees live in acceptable conditions. About 16 latrines have been dug and the first of several wells drilled and water found. Families have been served with mosquito nets. "Mosquitoes dealt with us during the first three days we spent here because there were no nets", Haman Daniel said. The refugees of Guirvidig are the latest to be assembled in a camp. Besides the food provided by donors which has been supplied to them and which is not enough to fully satisfy their needs, some of them travel back to the village to look for food for their families.

The setting up of a dispensary equipped with medications and medical staff constitutes one of the measures taken to ensure good health for the population. According to Dangmo Leopold, military health personnel at the dispensary, 378 cases of illnesses have so far been registered with one case of evacuation to Maga for blood transfusion. "There has been several cases of malaria", he said, stating that the dispensary is made up of one room for the pharmacy, one for consultation and wards for hospitalisation.

Animal Refugees

The displaced people of Maga came along with their animals; cows, goats, sheep and fowls. The animals live together with the people even though outside the tents. There are all together 490 goats and sheep, 97 cows and 5,000 fowls, according to Mohamat Oumaraini, Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Industries (MINEPIA) Sub Divisional Delegate for Maga.

To ensure the safety and good health of the animals, he and his team have been examining the animals and administering medicines to avoid outbreak of epidemic. "The first thing we did was to administer anti-parasitic drugs on the animals some of which were already suffering from diarrhoea", he said. The team from MINEPIA has equally given anti-stress medicine to the animals. "Animals have been dislodged from their base and are stressed up", Oumaraini, said, stating that he has been able to equally provide antibiotics for the beasts.