3,000 IDPs ‘starving, in serious danger’

About 3,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) whose camp is in Kuka Reta town, some 15 kilometers from Damaturu, Yobe state, are “currently in serious danger”, the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) said on Monday.

A statement issued by Ishaq Akintola, a professor and director of the group, said the camp had run out of food supply, drinkable water and drugs.

“MURIC is constrained to raise the alarm on the frightening situation in Kuka Reta IDP camp in view of the dangers inherent in the exposure of IDPs to such inhuman conditions. Apart from hunger, starvation, malnutrition and the likelihood of deaths, diseases such as cholera and diarrhea are likely to spread within the camp” read the statement.

“MURIC is confounded by the enormity of the danger and hardship to which IDPs in Kuka Reta camp are exposed. We condemn this culpable negligence on the part of the authorities. We therefore call on the Yobe State Government, the state’s arm of the National Emergency Agency (NEMA) and all aids groups in the state to address the issue with military dispatch.”

It appealed to international donors and the world community at large to come to the aid of the traumatized people of the north-east, saying “it now appears the Nigerian government alone cannot bring succour to the more than 1.5 million people displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency”.

It also urged the federal government of Nigeria to establish the North East Development Commission (NEDEC) to cushion the effects of economic degradation of the region after four years of brutal attacks, deliberate destruction of infrastructure and the attendant cessation of socioeconomic life.

The International Organstion for Migration (IOM) said in September that there are at least 2.1 million displaced persons in Nigeria. Back in January, NEMA had said almost a million of those were in the north-east alone, a figure that would have risen with series of attacks since then.

In May, the Borno state government urged the national emergency management agency (NEMA) to take over the daily feeding of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the state, saying the financial strain of feeding 500,000 IDPs was “unbearable”.

IDPAlhaji Mustapha Zanna, deputy governor of the state, made the appeal while receiving a donation of relief materials worth about N7 million for the IDPs by the Nigeria Flour Mills in Maiduguri.