No respite yet for Benue IDPs
Sarah Tyohem, a mother of two children is one of the thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) at the Abagana camp along Makurdi - Lafia road in Benue State.
The woman in her early 30’s had lived in the camp since January this year when gunmen invaded her remote village in Guma Local Government Area, killed many people and sacked the entire community.
She says life in the camp hasn’t been pleasant but supply of food from the government and kind hearted individuals as well as private organisations eased the burden until recently when it appeared that only little, and oftentimes insufficient food for everyone became their lot.
Tyohem added that things are currently difficult for them in terms of feeding and healthcare, noting that her children frequently fall ill due to the rowdy situation at the camp.
also gathered from the camp in Daudu of Guma LGA that most families are complaining of insufficient food, healthcare and other deplorable situation such as leaking roofs of the classrooms where they are taking refuge.
Also, children of school age were seen idling away in groups while the LGEA Primary School has temporarily shut down for a long while to accommodate the IDPs.
Mrs. Esther Utua, a widow with her 10 children who cohabit with other displaced people from her Tse-Torkula village, is worried about inadequate food for her children since support to the camp are no longer as visible as it was.
Worse still, the local council authority in Guma wants them evacuated from the premises so that the school can resume normal academic activities.
These women and many in Makurdi are facing similar challenges as they all complained of unavailability of essential items to alleviate their sufferings in the camp.
Only last week, the Chairman of Guma Council who doubles as chairman of Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) in the state, Anthony Shawon, called for immediate alternative to resettle IDPs in the state.
He said it was over eight months since they had been camped, particularly, at the LGEA Primary School in Daudu, thereby displacing school pupils from their academic activities.
According to him, after months of the school closure, the residents have become apprehensive that their children are being denied education while the children of the IDPs are receiving education.
Sequel to the chairman’s complaint, Governor Samuel Ortom directed the Executive Secretary of the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Emmanuel Shior, to relocate the IDPs to the UNHCR Shelter in Daudu.
The concern for most of the affected families now remains the likely humanitarian crisis the fresh arrangement would cause as they would be overcrowding the available UNCHR accommodation.
Earlier this week, the governor
Their homes are not yet safe for them to return for normal life to continue. Some of them would go for a week or two and return
had appealed to the federal government to address the plight of victims of suspected herders’ crisis in the state.
He made the appeal when he hosted one of the IDPs, Joy Terna, a victim of the Giza attacks in Nasarrawa State earlier in the year whose right hand was severed during the attack and is currently taking refuge at the Abagena IDPs camp.
Ortom who commended the efforts of officers and personnel of the Operation Whirl Stroke to stem the attacks, maintained that the victims needed more support from the federal government to overcome their challenge and rebuild their destroyed communities.
“The victims are eager to return to their ancestral homes, especially now that the level of rainfall has dropped, to allow the reconstruction of the destroyed communities. I appeal to the federal government to come to the aid of the victims,” he said.
The governor then directed SEMA to step up food distribution at the various IDPs camps across the state.
He also directed his personal physician, Dr. Zulum Gbaa, to attend to the victim at the Benue Government House and give her full medical attention even as he promised to revisit the IDP camps to assess their current condition with a view to taking more measures to alleviate their suffering.
Meanwhile, a SEMA Camp Commandant, James Iorhuna, has dismissed claims by the IDPs that they were not getting enough food, adding that they some of them never get satisfied with whatever they are given, no matter the quantity.
“As we speak, we are going to distribute food again tomorrow (Friday). Some of them (IDPs) will never be satisfied. There are others who sold the rice we gave them in exchange for maize, that we understand with them.
“You will also recall that kind hearted people are no longer visiting the camp in droves like the initial time the camp was opened. Besides, the population has reduced as some have returned to their homes following the peace in their areas. But I can’t immediately ascertain the number of those who returned home and those remaining in the camp now,” Iorhuna said.
The camp commandant had recently said that 16, 513 children made up the over 24,000 population of the Abagena camp.
He also told our correspondent in an interview that about 20 and 30 families in the camp had made attempts to go back home but returned to the camp for their safety.
“Their homes are not yet safe for them to return for normal life to continue. Some of them would go for a week or two and return,” Iorhuna added.
It would be recalled that the attackers killed 495 people between January 1 and May 23. While SEMA figured out that within the period, there were over 180,000 IDPs in eight camps in Guma, Logo and Makurdi LGAs respectively with over 500,000 other displaced people staying with relatives or in uncompleted buildings.
The emergency agency also stated that in the IPD camps, there were 80,000 children of school age with 2,442 pregnant women and 2,766 nursing mothers.
Recently, the SEMA secretary disclosed that the state government was in the process of decamping all the IDPs, stressing that already two camps in Tse-A Gbanda in Logo LGA which became soft targets for killer bandits had been shut down and the IDPs returned to live with their relatives.