It hosts Displaced Persons fleeing from Boko Haram insurgents, but unlike other camps, Kuka Reta (IDPs) site is neglected, writes DUKU JOEL
Driving past on Damaturu-Maiduguri Highway in Yobe State, the camp is unmistakable. The makeshift rounded shacks built with hardly more than discarded polythene sheets or straw hint that the occupants are far from having fun. In heat, they are in danger; in wet weather, comfort is unimaginable.
The Kuka-Reta camp lies just 15km from Damaturu, the Yobe State capital. Its occupants fled from Boko Haram militants and pitched their tents there. Thousands of internally displaced people from Yobe and Borno states have been sheltering at Kuka-Reta in the most difficult of circumstances.
The challenges of IDPs in other camps are well documented, but for those at Kuka-Reta, life seems a bit worse. They are on their own without any government presence.
The Village Head of Kuka Reta, Alhaji Lawan Babagana said the camp was built by the IDPs themselves.
He said, ”We decided to accept them here because they are our brothers. We speak the same language; we are from the same state. Borno and Yobe are the same so we are brothers. If we cannot accept them here, where would they run to?”
Records indicate that over 127 villages from Borno and Yobe are taking refuge in this community with an explosive population of over 20,000 people including children.
“Most of the people you are seeing here are from Kaga, Damboa, Benishiek, Gujba local government areas of Borno and Yobe State who ran out of their villages to settle in this place because of this Boko Haram wahala. There are over 127 villages that are in this place with a population of more than 5000 people in this village,” Lawan Babagana explained.
A visit to the camp turns out to be more revealing and troubling as the people are crying for neglect from the two states governments of Borno and Yobe with the Federal Government not left out.
One of the IDPs said, “The only governor that I know is the village head of Kuka-Reta who we always run to for help since we came into this village.“
While their counterparts in Maiduguri and Damaturu are given at least some basic human needs like food and shelter, the story of Kuka-Reta is a complete opposite as the camp is devoid of any basic amenity.
Like every other Boko Haram IDP, most of the displaced people at Kuka Reta scampered out of their communities without any contingency of food in place. Consequently getting a meal in the camp is hard for most families. Many of the families barely feed. A housewife at the camp told me that a small loaf of bread to them can save a lot of lives.
Water is one major challenge faced by the displaced people. The only borehole that hitherto provides water to the original Kuka-Reta community is now being over-stretched just as it cannot satisfy the growing water need of the explosive population of humans and animals. The people have now resorted to drinking pond water hitherto meant for animals.
There are also challenges in hygiene and access to health services, which is why the IDPs there, especially children, are frequently ill.
Bad hygiene practices and lack of sanitation has made the IDPs vulnerable to cholera and other diseases. The absence of quality food, drugs and potable drinking water couple with hunger and starvation is causing chronic and acute malnutrition to many of the children in the camp. Lack of modern toilet facilities at the camp is leading to an impending cholera outbreak as the people make use of shallow pit-latrines very close to where they sleep.
After battling for some months through the rainy season and the strong wind and sand storms, the IDPs are now faced with the extreme heat with few vegetation to provide shade. With the strong hamattan wind about to set in there is a likehood of high deaths in the camps especially for children and the aged.
Surviving at the Kuka-Reta IDP camp is more painful for some who were wealthy in their communities before they came to Kuka-Reta.
A housewife who identified herself as Aisha from Kadauri Village in Gujba Local Government of Yobe State said that her husband now feeds the family of five from cutting firewood in the bush to sell.
“We ate the last food we had in the morning. My husband has gone to the bush to cut firewood to sell. It is after the sale of the firewood that he gets money to buy some food for us. We hardly get three square meal since we left our village. Look at my children (pointing at some three children who were crying apparently of hunger); apart from what they ate in the morning, they will have to wait till evening when their father returns from the firewood business,” Aisha explained.
Investigations revealed that several deaths have occurred at the camp but unrecorded as the people just pray for their loved ones and bury them. One classical case that this reporter saw was the case of a twin that was abandoned by an unknown mother. Though one of the twins died apparently for lack of good medical care, the surviving one who is named Zainab is also facing serious health conditions as she looks visibly malnourished.
While the school on wheel programme, an educational drive of the UNICEF in conjunction with the Presidential Initiative on North East(PINE) to mop up the growing population of out of school children at the IDPs’ camps in the three affected states, many of the school aged children at the Kuka Reta Camp have no such facility or the benefit to enroll in school.
Investigation revealed that more than half of the only primary school in the community is being taken over as an accommodation facility for the IDPs. Classes 1,2,3 & 4 now sit in one class room while the remaining 5 & 6 stay in the remaining class room.
Security is one aspect of the camp that the people have taken it upon themselves. Checks revealed that the Village Head of Kuka Reta together with the Heads of Household at the camp have established a self-recognition security watch task force which has arrested more than 20 Boko Haram that have either tried to sneak into the camp or came in and were fished out by the people themselves.
“With my vigilante members and the kind of system we have put in place, it is very difficult for any bad person to come here and cause problems for us. All the heads of household can identify and bad person among us and we have been successful so far. About 20 Boko Haram who try to come and stay here for any reason have been caught or reported to the soldier. But our greatest thanks is to Allah who has made our place peaceful since the Boko Haram attacks,” Lawan Babagana informed.
One organisation that has alerted the world of the plight of the Kuka Reta IDPs is the Muslims Right Concern (MURIC).
MURIC in a statement by its Executive Director Prof. Ishaq Akintola which was made available to newsmen blew the whistle that about 3,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Yobe State are currently in serious danger.
“MURIC is constrained to raise the alarm on the frightening situation in Kuka Reta IDP camp in view of the dangers inherent in the exposure of IDPs to such inhuman conditions.
“Apart from hunger, starvation, malnutrition and the likelihood of deaths, diseases such as cholera and diarrhea are likely to spread within the camp” read the statement.
“MURIC is confounded by the enormity of the danger and hardship to which IDPs in Kuka Reta camp are exposed. We condemn this culpable negligence on the part of the authorities. We therefore call on the Yobe State Government, the state’s arm of the National Emergency Agency (NEMA) and all aids groups in the state to address the issue with military dispatch”, the statement said.
Investigation gathered that few days after the MURIC alarm, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) went to Kuka Reta to give succor to the displaced people where they presented food and non-food relief materials to the people.
Items distributed to the IDPs include; Rice, Millet, Maize, Guinea corn, Matrasses, vegetable oil, Palm Oil, Blankets and Detergents among others.
The NEMA coordinator in Yobe state Alhaji Bashir Garga said the food and the non-food materials cost the Agency the sum of Five million naira.
The Yobe State NEMA boss promised at the camp that his agency will continue to respond to their immediate needs by providing food, shelter, and hygienic needs of the displaced in line with the internationally best practices.
He noted that disaster management requires multi-dimensional and multi sectoral approval while seeking for collaboration from other partners in alleviating the sufferings of the people.
Rising to her defence, Yobe State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) also disclosed that state has not left the IDPs at the Kuka Reta camp as being speculated.
