The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, has directed the immediate delivery of food and non-food items to victims of the Muna El-Badawy Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.
This followed a fire incident that razed over 3,000 shelters in the camp on Saturday.
The minister expressed sadness at the incident which rendered over 3,000 households homeless.
The fire, which reportedly began from one of the tents in the camp, engulfed 3,000 others due to the absence of firefighting facilities.
Farouq, in a statement in Abuja yesterday by her media aide, Nneka Anibeze said: “On behalf of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, I sympathise with the government and people of Borno State over the fire incident which killed some people and destroyed shelters.
“The disaster has rendered many more people without shelter, even as the government intensifies efforts to re-settle Internally Displaced Persons.
“The spate of fire incidents in IDP camps has become recurrent and the ministry is putting up measures to educate the IDPs on ways of preventing such fire disasters.
“I have directed that the affected IDPs be provided with food, water and grains as well as non-food items such as clothing, blankets, mosquito nets and other items to temporarily cushion the hardship in camp as a result of the fire incident.”
According to the minister, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has already begun an on-the-field assessment of the damage.