For Okwuzi Community people, the rising flood this 2024 is not only unwelcomed but a harbinger of a revolving round of dislocation, discomfort, waste and pain that keeps them in the bondage of poverty.
As long-term host of oil extractive activities and the devastating marks that have left on their environment and livelihood, yearly flood forces them to prematurely harvest poor yielding crops leading to months of emptiness and hunger after the floods.
harvested cassava
With the flood back, the past week has seen community members frantically uprooting their cassava to hurriedly sell what they can and cheaply too, keeping the little they can for immediate use as they pack out to drier places. Unlucky ones have already lost their farms to the flood.
One of them, Mrs. Dorathy Amashia a widow and mother of three, lost her four farms; as she uprooted, the cassava was already rotten. So it another journey of hunger and emptiness.
cassava for processing
Meanwhile, they have started moving into spaces designated as camps for internally displaced persons.
