Herdsmen attack: ‘Over 40,000 persons’ displaced in Benue

The Benue State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) said over 40,000 persons had been displaced following the recent gunmen attack in Guma and Logo local government areas (LGAs) of the state.

Emmanuel Shior, executive secretary of SEMA, told NAN in Makurdi, the state capital, that the agency had opened four camps for the displaced persons in the affected areas.

Shior said Samuel Ortom, the governor, had been extremely worried over the plight of the people.

“As we speak over 40,000 persons have so far been displaced as a result of the attacks on our people in Guma and Logo LGAs,” he said.

“Government has decided to open four camps, three in Guma LGA and one in Logo LGA, the camps in Guma LGA are in Daudu, Gbajimba and Agasha, while the camp in Logo LGA is in Ugba.”

Shior said the state government decided to locate the camps in areas considered safest in the LGAs for security reasons.

“The camps are in areas that are safe and enough security has been provided for the safety of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs),” he said.

“What we are doing at the moment is to open temporary camps except the one in Daudu that already has existing camp facilities, the others camps are situated in primary schools located in the areas.

“We do not hope to keep them in the camps for a long time, remember this is January and most of the affected persons are farmers who are still harvesting their crops.”

Shior said government was concerned about the security of the people and their communities to enable them to return back to their homes instead of staying in the camps.

He told the IDPs that though they were only displaced and not misplaced as government and his agency would do everything possible to give them minimum comfort.