Displaced by Boko Haram, hungry IDPs protest food shortage

Hundreds of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Fufore and Malkohi camps in Adamawa staged peaceful protests over lack of food in their camps.

The IDPs, mostly women and children, on Wednesday appealed to 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, were 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 (NAN) complained that many families in the camps were in critical living conditions due to hunger.

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, Haruna Bana, from Borno and living in Malkohi camp expressed fear of imminent starvation and malnutrition in the camp.

Mr. Bana said that they received the last food in December 2017 and since then they were not given anything.

He appealed to Borno government to come to their aid and evacuate them.

A security officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity at one of the camps, 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, Abbani Imam, the state Coordinator NEMA in charge of Adamawa and Taraba confirmed the development but said the challenge would soon be addressed.

Mr. 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.

(NAN)