The state of IDP camps in Borno state compared to other parts of the country calls for concerns as SADIQ ABUBAKAR reports.
It is on record that Nigeria at today has more than 10 million persons said to be internally displaced out of the over 200 million population, majority of which are in Borno state. This is according to statistics by the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants. Somehow, this number has been on the increase despite efforts by governments and non governmental organisations ( NGO) to ameliorate the situation due to poverty and insecurity.
Realistically, it would be recalled that since the emergence of Boko Haram insurgency in 2009 when former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Senator Ali Modu Sheriff were in office as president and governor respectively, there were only a few IDPs in Borno state and the entire North east region. Today, gradually, the figure has been increasingly very alarming with consequential increase of hardships and sufferings that require urgent and continuous humanitarian support and assistance.
This intervention could be in the form of various humanitarian needs of the increasing number of displaced persons and refugees within and outside the state and even beyond epecially in places like Niger, Chad and Cameroon republics that share international boundaries with Nigeria in the North-east.
Probable cause of rise in IDPs
The rise of IDP is largely as a result of the perpetual attacks and threats by insurgents in villages, towns and subsequent ambushes of military personnel on routine operations and patrols along rural and dilapidated roads linking towns in Borno like Mahir and villages as well as state capitals in the North-east.
Another main reason for the increasing number of IDPs and insecurity that has escalated to a serious proportion in many places is poverty, hunger, unemployment or idleness at the various camps, inability to return to farming, trading, herding, skills acquisition training and lack of entrepreneurship among others which led to cases of rape, fornication, adultery, prostitution and smoking among others in IDP camps.
Gov’t irked by development
This is a situation Borno state government could not fold its arms and watch such as things like that happen in designated IDPs camps. The state government therefore swung into action swiftly by constituting various committees to screen and register IDPs both old and new with the intention of providing them with food items, condiments and non-food items including livelihood support in collaborations with both the federal government and NGOs.
Other measures include ensuring the provision of access to farmlands, return of observation of market days in some places, increase in surveillance by military personnel and complementing CJTF as well as vigilante hunters and other para military security agencies which is steadily stabilising the situation compared to the past where the National Commission for Refugees disclosed that about 300,000 people were internally displaced in 2020 alone.
ICRC on IDP status
Although The International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) regards refugees as people who have crossed an international frontier and are at risk or have been victims of persecution in their country of origin while IDPs, on the other hand, have fled their homes for similar reasons, but did not cross any international border. The fact that the total number of IDPs and refugees given are not totally reliable because statistics never revealed the real number is the reason accurate figure is unavailable, but estimated figures from other sources like when disasters strike and when people live in places with weak infrastructure are there.
However, during attacks and threats or disasters, it is not everybody that flees their homes in despair counts as an IDP while many rural people also move to urban areas, like state capitals to over-stretch the existing inadequate infrastructures in the hope of finding succour or better livelihood support, thereby influencing the distinction between internal migration and internal displacement which can be very blurry.
Peace sluggishly returning
Much recently, the administration of Professor Babagana Umar Zulum announced plans to dismantle all IDP camps in the state capital, Maiduguri, whether legal or illegal designated camps, despite the fact that it has already commenced closure of many camps and relocated them to their ancestral homes in their various local government headquarters and adjoining villages. This was after thorough availability and increase in security personnel and operation to safeguard their live and property.
It is also visible that the Boko Haram insurgency which peaked up in 2014 and mostly affected the North-eastern states is the most important cause of internal displacement and peace building strategic transformation has not been restored yet in the state or the region affected.
Findings revealed that upon the efforts of the North-east governments and military, security is sluggishly returning peacefully in some places while in the others, it is deteriorating. This is even in all parts of Nigeria and the economic downturn caused by the insurgency has been compounding problems of Nigerians both within and outside the IDPs camps.
To that extent, life is generally worse in the IDP camps full of suffering. The refugee agency reckons that 2.4 million IDPs currently live in Nigeria’s part of the Lake Chad Basin comprising the six states of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe. Borno is where the Boko Haram uprising began and the Jihadi extremists actually controlled some of its territory in 2014.
That year alone, they killed an estimated 11,000 people and there have been attacks outside Borno state including places like Nigeria’s neighbours Cameroon, Chad and Niger which were also affected. There, some people fled across the borders; so they are officially refugees now while all countries concerned also have IDPs.
Poor infrastructure in camps
It is also observed that the regional crisis has several dimensions or peculiarities to say the least where the population is growing fast. Water scarcity is worsening, hunger and starvation, unemployment or idleness, lack of educational facilities and lack of hospitals and health or medical personnel to cater for the large size of IDPs population at the camps are increasing apart from lack of hospitals particularly because of the global climate crisis among others. All these were visible and deteriorating rapidly due to the influx of new displaced persons from the various communities looking for asylum or safe place.
Many children and young people in need of humanitarian support and parents at the camps could not hide their anger and feelings about their sufferings and hardships which became obvious and paramount for government interventions as well NGOs. This further made it easier for insurgents to recruit under-aged children or conscript women, youths and children into the sect.
However, the crisis or violence metamorphosed gradually and spread to other parts of the North-east, despite the fact that the terrorists were degraded and forced out of some areas captured by the Boko Haram insurgents by the military and combined or joint vigilante groups and hunters.
Additionally, IDPs in refugee camps are exposed to risks of malnutrition, hunger and even starvation. They lack clothing and medicines and drugs tend to be irregular too. Sanitation problems on the other hand exacerbated issues of inadequate healthcare. Though a great number of children and teenagers live in the camps, educational facilities tend to be poor or simply do not exist at all.
Similarly, it is well understood that IDPs also suffer more with mental-health issues than people who were not forced to leave their homes.
According to the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, depression and post-traumatic stress disorders are traceable in camps among the IDPs especially the youths and adults or old men and women all over the camps where professional support can help to address these issues but the IDPs camps still also lack trained staff who could offer psychosocial or mental support health wise.
In most of the IDPs camps, women are the majority adult population where unfortunately, sexual harassment and gender-based violence cases were common despite tight security and restrictions of movements within the camps; hence IDPs are at the mercy of security forces, but women and girls in IDP camps have been sexually abused in exchange for food and water in a systematic way.
In extreme cases, there are reports of pregnant women being raped. Women have also been forced into marriages or sold into slavery. Similar reports were published in the past by the media; for example, Human Rights Watch (HRW) documented the sexual abuse of 43 women and girls living in IDP camps in Maiduguri in 2016.
