5,000 Women Pregnant, 2,000 Others May Deliver Before Next Week In Anambra Refugee Camp

 

This is the tales of woes and pains from the flood victim’s camp in Anambra, the light of the nation

As they wore haggard faces, struggling under the control of armed soldiers and policemen, this reporter spotted a young woman in the crowd probably in her early twenties. She carried a very tender baby boy. 

 
The scorching sun was biting hard on the baby, and though the eyes remained shut as a natural defense against the sun, the baby continued to gesticulate with his hands.
The woman, identified as Ugochukwu Mbadiwe, oblivious of the tender frame of the baby, cuddled him with one hand while she used the other hand to ward off people that might injure the baby as they struggled for goodies.

When cornered for a chat, Ugochukwu said the baby was born inside the camp and was named Kaosisochukwu, meaning “As it pleases God”, due to circumstances surrounding his birth.

Having suffered monumental losses and rendered homeless by the flood, Kaosi’s mother told Sunday Sun that labour pains suddenly came before her expected date of delivery due to trauma, as they are now refugees in their own land. Before help could come in the form of any vehicle, she had delivered the baby inside an abandoned classroom in the camp.
Standing beside her was another mother, Anulika Ozoekwe, cuddling her own baby, a boy too.

She narrated her own experience similar to Kaosi’s mother’s, saying more pregnant women inside the camp were already at the last stages of their delivery date, while others had already delivered.
All the new born babies with their mothers pass the night in the crowded camp, without accompanying medical attention. Already, in the past one week, 11 babies have been delivered at the Aguleri camp.

The breakdown, according to Hon. Peter Okechukwu, a Transition Council member in Anambra West LGA, showed that one woman delivered triplets, two delivered twins, while four others delivered single babies.

The camp now hosts over 20,000 people, while more people, who earlier refused to leave their homes, are now joining the camp since the water level has refused to recede.

A community leader, Uyanna Ignatius, also disclosed that there are about 5,000 pregnant women in the camp, while about 2,000 among them may put to bed before the next one week.

He said unless government and well-meaning Nigerians intensified efforts in finding more relief camps and making their accommodation better, there is imminent outbreak of diseases when the babies are delivered. At Crowther Memorial Primary School, Onitsha, the Anglican Bishop of Mbamili Diocese, Rt. Rev. Henry Okeke, disclosed that out of 3,500 people in the two refugee camps in Onitsha, 122 are pregnant women.