The internally displaced persons who abandoned their villages in Chikun, Kajuru and Birnin Gwari local governments following bandits and kidnappers’ attacks have cried out to government to secure their communities and ensure their immediate return.
The IDPs, who are taking refuge at different IDP camps, have also cried out to governments at all levels to help them with relief materials, to ease their living in the IDP camps during the ongoing cold harmattan weather pending when their villages will be secured and they would return home.
The persons from villages that include Malmo, Garu, Gbagyi Rumana and Badna in Birnin Gwari local government and Ungwan Boka, Araha 1 and 2 in Kajuru local government, have been displaced for two years. While those from Birnin Gwari and parts of Chikun local governments are still at the Ungwan Zwahu IDP camp in Goningora, those from Kajuru LGA have started going back to their destroyed villages.
Speaking on Sunday, when officials of a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Resilient Aid and Dialogue Initiative (RADI), took food and clothes to them, the IDPs said, though they ran away when their communities were attacked starting from 2019, they would happily go back if the abandoned communities could be fully secure.
“We want to go back to our farms, instead of waiting like beggars for people to come and bring food to us,” said, Malam Isa Dauda, a father of five from Malmo village.
Speaking at both IDP camps, co-founders of RADI, Reuben Buhari and Alheri Magaji, who led other volunteers to share out relief materials to 100 IDPs at the Goningora camp and 110 at the Rimau centre, said the plight of the IDPs requires urgent help from the government and other individuals.
“This is the harmattan season with all its attendant discomfort and these people are in dire need. Thought they would go back to their destroyed villages if they can be secured, but their urgent need now is food, clothing and proper shelter from the elements. What we in RADI have been doing for two years with these vulnerable people, is trying to meet their urgent needs,” Buhari said.
Harmattan: IDPs cry to govt for security, relief materials
