Hundreds of Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, from Fufore and Malkohi camps in Adamawa State, who were sacked from their homes by Boko Haram terrorists, on Wednesday staged peaceful protests over lack of food in their camps.
The IDPs, mostly women and children called on President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene in their plight.
Adamawa has only two designated camps managed by NEMA and they are situated at Fufore and Malkohi villages with a total number of about 3,000 IDPs. The IDPs, who mostly are from Borno state have been in the two camps for over two years waiting to be evacuated to their state of origin.
The IDPs, in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria, complained that many families in the camps were in critical living conditions due to hunger.
Malam Adamu Bukar from Malkohi camp said that he has one wife and three children and they only eat once in a day.
“Since early January, when they distributed the normal thirty days food items to us, we have never received anything again,” Bukar said.
According to him, people living in the camp need urgent food intervention, because any moment from now some people, especially children would die of hunger.
Also speaking, Malam Haruna Bana, from Borno state and living in Malkohi camp expressed fear of imminent starvation and malnutrition in the camp.
Bana said that they received the last food in December 2017 and since then they were not given anything.
He appealed to the Borno state government to come to their aid and evacuate them.
A security officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, at one of the camp also confirmed the situation, saying that the development was a threat to the camp security.
“On daily basis, the IDPs in sizeable number go out of the camp to look for food, which is a security challenge to the entire people living in the camp,’’ the source said.
When contacted over the situation, the state Coordinator of NEMA in charge of Adamawa and Taraba states, Malam Abbani Imam, confirmed the development but said the challenge would soon be addressed.
Imam said that the state office had already informed the NEMA headquarters of the situation and were waiting for the approval to release food to the camps.
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