After the recent herdsmen attacks on many communities in Plateau State, the state government and other stakeholders have had their hands full in caring for thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the state. YUSUFU AMINU IDEGU visited some of the camps and reports on life therein.
IT is said that after a storm comes calm. So it is with the Plateau North Senatorial District where calm appears to have returned after the attacks on 11 villages in Barkin Ladi and Riyom local government areas on June 23. But life is far from being a calm affair for the people displaced by the attacks. They are now settled in camps numbering about 20 around Barkin Ladi, Mangu, Riyom and Jos South local government areas.
The camps are not the type provided by government. The victims decided on their own to settle at the locations after escaping death in the attacks. Some of them found themselves in classrooms, churches, markets and any other place they can hide their heads. Many of them had tried to return to their homes after the attacks only to find that their attackers had also razed their houses as punishment for not waiting to be killed, as many of them had got wind of the attacks and fled before the gunmen could reach their houses.
Some of the camps where victims are grappling with life include those at RCC Heipang, LCC Ban Heipang, Geosciences Hall in Bukuru, COCIN Church Gassa, Rawuru in Fan, COCIN Church Fan, Sangasa Primary School Fan, Riyom community hall, Pilot Science School Rahoss, COCIN Church Rantiyan Mangu, ECWA Church Bokkos, CAC Bokkos and LGA Secretariat Barkin Ladi. There were many others who escaped to Jos and are currently accommodated by relations at the state capital.
According to the need assessment carried out by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Nigerian Red Cross Society (NRCS) on the IDPs, there are not fewer than 22,000 IDPs at the camps. But the state emergency management agency said the number of persons displaced stands at 38,057 located in 26 emergency camps.
While the actual figure of the displaced is still being debated, the humanitarian challenges at the various camps have been enormous. It is a hell of hardship for the survivors. People who before now were managing to cope with life in their own little ways in their homes are now left to wallow in acute deprivation in emergency camps that would ordinarily be ideal only for domestic animals.
Management Agency) and SEMA (State Emergency Management Agency) to provide humanitarian assistance to people displaced from their homes as a result of these recent attacks. It was not a good experience seeing the desperation on their faces and also the squalid conditions under which they live. The sights and sounds were heart-breaking.”
The feeling of despair accompanying one’s forcible eviction from the comfort of one’s home is unquantifiable. Happily, however, government officials, individuals, religious organisations and non-governmental organisations have been visiting the camps to show love and give hope to the victims in their prevailing hopeless situations. No doubt, the displaced persons have been exposed to various medical challenges that can even result in more deaths at the camps. Continuous exposure to cold can result in pneumonia, exposure to mosquito bites can lead to outbreak of malaria, while the overcrowding in the camps can cause cholera outbreak and other lethal medical conditions associated with such situations.
The conditions of adults and the aged in the camps are as bad as those of the children. There are pregnant women as well as nursing mothers in most of the camps. Some of the pregnant women expressed fear of miscarriage due to hardship and psychological trauma, while nursing mothers feared for the fragile conditions of their kids.
One of the pregnant women, Kacholom Musa, said: “I have not been able to sleep well since the attack. Only God knows what we passed through to escape. The image of the attack is still haunting me. I can’t sleep and I can hardly eat. I have not seen my husband since then. I don’t even know if he is alive.”
Some school children who were supposed to return home to warm reception from their parents after their exams in boarding schools had ended up joining their siblings at the IDP camps. Some only knew of the incidents when they called their parents to inform them that they were through with their exams and were on their ways home.
Sixteen-year-old Joshua Bulus Bot, who had to join one of the IDP camps straight from school, said: “I was not even aware of the attacks. It was when I finished my exams and called my parents to ask for transport fare for me to return home that I realised that there was a problem. I first called my father but there was no response. I later called my mum, but rather than talk to me, she was just crying on the phone. It was one of our neighbours who called later to tell me not to go home but meet them here in the church. It was when I got here that they told me what happened and that my father was killed in the attack.”
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She said: “The Federal Government and that of the state have earlier presented relief materials including food items and non-food items. That is the initial intervention by government. The state’s Ministry of Health had also mobilised its team of medical experts to go to the camps and attend to any emergency that might arise.
“When an outbreak of cholera was reported in one of the camps, it was the team of medical personnel that intervened and stopped its spread and also rescue the patients. So, government is not just folding its arms and allow the people to die of hunger or die of health issues. Government is up and doing and is ready to do its possible best to make the displaced people at the camps comfortable.
