Approximately 350 Internally Displaced Persons from Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states have moved to Abuja as one of the ways to escape being killed by the violent Boko Haram members.
It was learnt that the IDPs moved to Durunmi, one of the remote villages in Nigeria’s capital. The IDPs are reportedly being catered for in Durunmi by a charity organisation, Catholic Caritas.
Although officials of the National Emergency Agency declined to describe the location where the IDPs are being catered for as a camp, the affected persons were gathered in a particular place in the village.
NEMA officials, however, stated that the IDPs in Abuja were being looked after by the Federal Government just like others in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe.
NEMA Zonal Coordinator, Mr. Ishaya Chonoko, said the agency had done needs assessment of the displaced persons and would commence the distribution of relief materials to them next week.
He said, “After our attention was drawn to the displaced persons there, we figured out that they were people that have been chased out of their communities by Boko Haram insurgents. Some of them are from Gwoza, some are from Chibok and a few others from other locations.
“We realise that they got here by coming in one after the other. Those who came first called their friends and families and these friends called their own people and that was how the number grew to over 350 people.”
The PUNCH on Tuesday reported that a total of 760 children in various camps for IDPs in Nigeria’s North-East were unaccompanied to the camps by neither their parents nor guardians.