Hundreds of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) at the Pompomari IDP Camp, Damaturu, Yobe State have staged peaceful protests over lack of proper sanitation in their camps.
The IDPs, mostly women and children expressed their anger and dissatisfaction.
The protest came when members of the NYSC visited the IDP Camp to offer free medical services to them as part of the activities marking the 45th anniversary of the scheme.
The IDPs refused to accept the NYSC free medical services.
When contacted, Permanent Secretary, Yobe State Emergency Management Agency, Musa Idi Jigawa asked the Director Search and Rescue, SEMA, Garba Bilal to speak to newsmen.
Garba revealed that initially the cleaning of the IDP Camp was being undertaken by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), but that they withdrew due to some undisclosed reasons.
He said the Yobe State Environmental Sanitation took over but left too resulting to the IDPs living with dirt and filty environment.
Meanwhile, one of the protesting IDPs, who gave his name as Iliyasu Mohammed said, “the reason we rejected the NYSC free medical services is because it is not our priority, what we need is proper sanitation, look at the environment we are living, it is very dirty and unhygienic, they deliberately abandoned us and don’t want us to talk”.
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