The Borno State Emergency Management Agency on Wednesday said it had concluded arrangements to resettle 1,900 displaced households at a newly established Internally Displaced Persons camp in Maiduguri.
SEMA’s Chairperson, Hajiya Yabawa Kolo, told newsmen in Maiduguri that the camp, located at the Sani Abacha Stadium, was set up with support from the international humanitarian organizations.
Kolo, who was reacting to protest staged by IDPs over alleged lack of food and shelter, said that the project was designed to decongest the 5,000 capacity Teachers’ Village IDPs camp and provide temporary shelters for the displaced persons.
He said: “We recorded over 35,000 new arrival of IDPs, who were displaced from their homes in Baga, Kruss-Kawwa and adjourning communities in Kukawa Local Government Area of the state.
“There is massive displacement due to the resurging Boko Haram attacks; we have influx of IDPs which resulted to congestion in camps in Maiduguri metropolis.
“Already, the state government had constructed 200 temporary shelters at the Teachers’ Village camp; we need more shelters to accommodate the increasing number of IDPs in the metropolis.
“Humanitarian organisations had constructed about 4,000 temporary shelters for 1,900 displaced households at the stadium; we are going to resettle them soon.”
According to her, the agency is working in collaboration with National Emergency Management Agency and humanitarian actors to provide food and non food assistance to the IDPs in 14 registered camps in Maiduguri and host communities.
Kolo dismissed as misleading, reports indicating that the IDPs staged a demonstration to protest alleged lack of food.
She noted that the protest was triggered sequel to the suspension of registration exercise by the International Committee of Red Cross.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that IDPs at the Teachers’ Village Camp on Tuesday staged a protest over alleged lack of food and shelter at the camp.
It took the intervention of the police, military and other security personnel to disperse the protesters who blocked Maiduguri-Kano Highway.
Also, Cdr. Salisu Danjuma, the Supervisor of the Federal Government’s Emergency Food Intervention programme, said that the programme had distributed food and non-food items to more than 31,000 newly arrived IDPs in January.
Danjuma explained that each of the households received 59.8 kilogramme assorted food items from the programme, adding that the items were expected to last for one month for each family.
He added that the items were distributed to the existing and newly arrived IDPs at Bakassi, Farm Center, Madinatu, Teachers Village and Mogolis camps.
He said: “We distributed food items to 19, 506 new arrival of IDPs and 12, 000 existing displaced persons.”
According to him, the next round exercise would be conducted in February.