The Nigerian Correctional Service said on Sunday that at least 274 prisoners had escaped from a jail in the Borno state of Nigeria due to severe floods.
In a statement, service spokesperson Abubakar Umar said, ” The flood brought down the walls of the correctional facilities, including the medium security custodial centre Maiduguri (MSCC) as well as the staff quarters in the city.”
According to Umar, at least 281 prisoners escaped while being taken to “a safe and secure facility,” and at least seven later had themselves recaptured.
In a statement on Sunday, Mohammed Umar, Controller General of the Nigeria Correctional Service, said the agency made the identities, including their biometrics-“available to the public”.
He added that the prisoners were still being hunted.
Weeks of flooding around the country have killed 229 people and displaced more than 386,000, according to the most recent statistics provided to CNN by Nigeria’s disaster management agency, NEMA.
Statistically, the floods have hit hard in Northern Nigeria. The country’s northeast contains the state of Borno.
One of the biggest rivers in the country, the Niger River, warned of rising water levels last month, for which the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency urged governments to watch out.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that as man-made climate change heats the globe, extreme rainfall events will become more frequent and intense in nearly all of Africa, including Nigeria.
Flooding from a burst dam in northern Nigeria swept animals, including snakes and crocodiles, into communities Wednesday.
At Least 64 People Feared Dead in Nigeria Boat Disaster
The local authorities in Zamfara State, northwest Nigeria, reported on Saturday that a boat accident on a river may have claimed the lives of at least 64 persons.
Early Saturday morning, a wooden boat carrying seventy farmers overturned while being transported across the river to their farmlands in Gummi town.
The local authorities rescued six people from the sea after three hours of frantic mobilization.
“The same sort of incident has occurred in Gummi Local Government Area on two occasions before,” said Aminu Nuhu Falale, a local official organizing the rescue operations.
He added that rescue crews were intensifying their operation and hoping that they would be able to find more survivors.
According to the local traditional ruler, over 900 farmers depend on crossing the river every day to reach their farmlands, yet only two boats are accessible for that, which most often causes congestion.
In addition to being hard-hit by criminal gangs fighting over mineral resources, Zamfara State has also suffered from floods caused by high rainfall.
Local authorities claim the flooding, which came two weeks ago, displaced over 10,000 people.
