Alia to UNHCR: Benue committed to addressing challenges facing IDPs

Hyacinth Alia, governor of Benue, says his administration is committed to addressing the plight of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the state.

Alia spoke on Thursday when he received the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) delegation at the government house in Makurdi, the Benue capital.

The governor said his administration is committed to ensuring that the challenges of displaced persons are addressed.

He commended UNHCR for supporting the efforts of his administration in tackling the humanitarian crisis in Benue, adding that the commission has “mobilised resources for the IDPs and refugees in the state and country”.

Commenting on the security situation in Benue, Alia said “his administration has resolved to continue to work together with the security agencies to ensure the safety of everyone living in the state”.

The governor said he would also “restore the lives and livelihoods along the Makurdi to Kadarko routes and the deep fields in Guma, Kwande, Gwer, Agatu, and Logo LGAs, where displacement and insecurity have severely impacted”.

He said his administration established the ministry of humanitarian affairs and disaster management, strengthened the Benue State Emergency Management Agency office, and created the Bureau of International Cooperation and Development (BICD) to support humanitarian efforts in the state.

Alia donated the old ministry of information building along Barracks road as a central hub for UN activities in the state.

He said farmlands have been allocated for IDPs and Cameroonian refugees in Ikyogen to enable them to go into farming.

He listed other measures as “the allocation of vendor assignments from MDAs to the IDPs to aid their integration into society”.

Others, according to the governor, are the “establishment of cooperatives to enable the IDPs to engage in income-generating activities, as well as the setting up of IDP farms meant to cater for their feeding needs, as some of the initiatives put in place by the government to help the plight of the displaced persons in the state”.

He commended President Bola Tinubu for supporting the return of IDPs to their ancestral homes in the state.