NEMA to Provide Medication, Counselling to 275 Women and Children Rescued from Boko Haram

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has directed medical and psychosocial experts to give medication and counselling to the 275 rescued victims of Boko Haram due to the deplorable and traumatic conditions they have been through.

The Director General of the agency, Alhaji Sani Sidi,who was at the Malkohi camp in Yola, the Adamawa State capital,where the victims were being rehabilitated following their rescue last week, disclosed that the whole world had identified with their plight in view of the traumatic condition that the Boko Haram insurgents had subjected them to.

Sidi revealed that a number of government agencies, UNFPA and other non- governmental organisations had dispatched their personnel to Malkohi to render the necessary assistance to the victims of insurgency because of their deplorable health conditions.

According to the DG, NEMA had despatched both food and non-food materials to the camp to alleviate their sufferings.

He said tailors would be recruited to sew clothes for the victims as many of them looked unkempt, adding that the doctors would attend to the malnourished persons and those who sustained minor injuries in the camp.

While conducting the DG round the camp the Adamawa State, Coordinator of NEMA, Alhaji Sa’ad Bello, revealed that 75 per cent of those he described as special internally displaced persons (IDPs) comprise 275 persons, of which 68 are women while the rest are children.

He said they were rescued from the Sambisa forest and are now taking refuge in the camp, and in dire needs of government and public attention.

The NEMA coordinator also disclosed that 22 persons were critically ill and had been hospitalised at the Federal Medical Centre in Yola.

According to him, the victims had different degrees of ailments and some were wounded by bullet and bomb blasts, adding that some were undergoing surgeries which required urgent attention.

Meanwhile, the UN Resident Coordinator for Nigeria, Dr. Dauda Toure, as a matter of urgency, called on UNICEF personnel to join the team, in view of the agencies expertise in handling women and children.

Toure however, said there was need for coordination in the distribution of relief materials to the victims to avoid duplication, as well as synergy by the government and the agencies to bring about proper alleviation to the victims.