(By Timothy Olanrewaju – MAIDUGURI)
About 500,000 displaced victims of the Boko Haram conflict are taking refuge in Maiduguri, Borno state capital, out of the over 2 million people displaced in the troubled northeast by years of violence.
Northeast coordinator of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mohammad Kanar, who disclosed this at an Humanitarian Coordination Meeting organised by the agency in Maiduguri, also said the half a million displaced persons are “residing at the various internally displaced persons camps, residences of relations, friends and helpers” in the state capital.
Kanar called on stakeholders in emergency management, including humanitarian agencies in the northeast to “move beyond intervention at internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps” by extending their services to host communities and newly liberated towns.
He said the 52 stakeholders (mostly international agencies) in humanitarian management presently involved in the intervention in the northeast have been concentrating more on IDPs at refugee camps in the capital, without paying attention to those at the newly liberated communities.
He said IDPs camps in Maiduguri and its environs are already covered, adding that records show that “humanitarian crises continued to surface from communities hosting displaced persons and newly liberated towns.”
The agency head said the coordination meeting was organised to assess the development in humanitarian crisis management in the affected areas, noting that new data show that the camps have little to no humanitarian crises.
He appealed to all humanitarian organizations to direct their interventions to IDPs in the recently liberated communities.
Eight local governments (Gwoza, Gamboru-Ngala, Mafa, Bama, Askira-Uba, Konduga, Maiduguri Metropolitan Council and Jere) are scheduled to receive humanitarian assistance before the end of October.
