Internally Displaced Persons plead with Benue, NEMA for camps

Some Internally Displaced Persons in Benue State have called on the state government and the National Emergency Management Agency to provide them with shelter.
The displaced persons from Guma and Makurdi Local Government Areas, said they fled their homes on Thursday after an attack by suspected herdsmen.
Some of them told the News Agency of Nigeria in Makurdi that they had been living on the street since the incident.
One of them, Aho Alexander, a resident of Daudu in Guma Local Government Area, urged the authorities to provide them with a camp to ease their hardship.
Alexander said: “These people have been resting under the mango, cashew and banana trees because they have no other place provided for them.
“Government should deploy available measures to build refugee camps for them as a temporary measure before tackling the problem.”
Another victim, Hellen Akuzo, from Udei ward, said she would be happy if NEMA and the government would provide them with accommodation and security.
Akuzo said: “As I am talking to you, all my relatives and some of my belonging are under a mango tree in a community called North Bank.
“This is a very difficult time for everybody.
“We don’t even have anything to eat because we left our homes unprepared.
“Government should look into our plight because we have no place to go.”
Akuzo also stressed the need to deploy security personnel to the affected communities and ensure that peace returned to the area.
NAN reports that many of the displaced persons, including women and children, were seeing along Lafia-Makurdi Highway trekking with their luggage to Makurdi.