NILE VICTIMS Sadat orders insurance

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33777, 25 February 1975, Page 17

NILE VICTIMS Sadat orders insurance

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright) CAIRO, February 24. President Sadat has ordered that Egyptian villagers be insured against natural disasters after floods in which 15 people were killed and 15,000 lost their homes.

The floods, the worst in 20 years, swept away entire ; villages of primitive mud 1 homes in the Southern Nile , River valley. The President has asked ; the Social Insurance Min-j ister, Mr Mohammed AbdelFattah Ibrahim, to work out 1 an insurance scheme that i would include loss of cattle ’ and production equipment, i Meanwhile, the Agriculture I Minister (Mr Mahmoud Abdel-Akher) said that the i debt repayments of the i farmers in the flood areas <

would be frozen and they would be supplied with seeds, fodder, and fertilisers to replant crops destroyed by the floods. ♦ ■

The Government has set aside 100,000 Egyptian pounds (about $NZ176,000) to provide relief to the flood victims. President Sadat said that aid was not sufficient and did not cover the flood losses. Most of the people who lost their homes when torrential rains flooded the Nile were peasants who fled the area with only the belongings they could carry. About 4000 mud homes were demolished by the water and 20 villages were completely washed away.

Irrigation channels—are being dug to divert the flood waters—still some 6ft deep in some parts—into the Nile.