Sylvanus Viashima, Jalingo
Thirty-two-year-old Talatu Christopher is five months pregnant. Despite the fact that she is already in her second trimester, she has not seen a doctor. Not even for once.
In normal times, this could pass as normal for a typical village woman, given that most of them go the entire pregnancy without the recommended medical attention. But Talatu has been away from home for nearly a year now.
She lives as an Internally Displaced Person (IDP) in one of the camps in the state. In her camp, her pregnancy is under threat, so is her life. In this camp, life is short, hunger is real and food is scarce and nothing is led the way it is supposed to be.
The lifestyle is characterized by poor hygiene, improper bed spacing and lack of most necessities of life. Daily, she recoils to fate, watching helplessly how her life had taken a plunge for the worse.
Talatu got married to one Christopher, only a few months before their farming community in Kona, Jalingo Local Government, Taraba State, was attacked by the killer Fulani herdsmen.
Several people lost their lives to the attack. Talatu and her husband escaped by the whiskers. They ran away from the invaders, fled far away from their home, only to settle as displaced persons at Government Primary School, Mayodassa.
Escaping in haste, they left with nothing. Their properties back home were completely looted and destroyed by the invaders, who also confiscated their farmlands and transformed them into grazing grounds for their cattle.
She told Daily Sun: “My husband and I got married and we were just settling down to start our life together. Even before we got married, we were already doing most of our things together, things like farming. So last year, he went and paid my bride price and we moved in together.
“Because we planned very well, we planted over three bags of rice and and we also planted a large farm of melon and other things. Then all of a sudden, the Fulani herdsmen attacked our village and killed a lot of people there.
“Those of us that were very lucky, escaped alive. But that is just all that we escaped with. We could not carry anything. My husband’s harvest from the previous year was still there because it is from it that we sell to do the new farm and attend to other problems. We left all of it behind. In fact, the clothes we were wearing were the only things we left with.
“Initially, I thought we would not stay here for long, that the government would send them away from our land and we would go back home to pick back the pieces of our lives. But up till now, they are still there and have taken over our lands as if it is a conquest”.
Despite the condition of the camp, Talatu, like a number of other women in the camp, was blessed with conception. Common to most of them, however, is that none of them is receiving any medical attention.
Kauna Emmanuel was also one of such women that were blessed with pregnancy in the camp. She told Daily Sun that going for antenatal care is the least of her many worries as she is confronted with the bigger trouble of what to eat:
“I always thought of pregnancy as a thing of great blessing from God, but I think this is now a curse. I have lost everything and now I am pregnant. Instead celebrating and rejoicing, the pregnancy is such a burden to me because I don’t have food to eat. I sleep in an open classroom, no privacy, and I have to contend with all the elements.
“Since I got pregnant, I have not seen a doctor. I thought they said they were going to take care of us, free but when we went to the hospital, they asked us to bring money.
“Where do we get money to go to the hospital when we cannot even feed ourselves? I know that it is very dangerous for me and my baby, but there is nothing we can do. It is not like we can go back to our homes and start our lives all over again. That will just be a way of ending our lives faster because the Fulani herdsmen who took over our lands are still there, ready to kill anyone who ventures there.
“For now, all I do is stay here and pray that either we get food from some people who are caring enough to remember us- since the government has decided to forget that we exist or we will all die of starvation or other ailments”.
The camp leader, Mrs Jumai Christopher, said: “We have been here for close to a year now and we are all getting sick and frustrated because there is little food, water and no finance to take care of our health.
The pregnant women among us are suffering seriously because, unlike the others, they have two people to worry about, themselves and their unborn babies”.
But then the pregnant women in the camp are not the only ones in such dire circumstances. Eighty-year-old Yajau Kinni, who is suffering from ulcer, has gone for months without medication. Her condition has been worsened by the lack of regular food:
“ I cannot believe that at my age, some people will come and send me away from my house and I will be staying outside here like an outcast. I have lived with my husband in our house for over fifty years before he died and left me, already in my old age”
“Now they have driven me away from the only home that I know. I go for days and at times weeks, without a good food. Even when we have food, priority is given to the children, who represent our future.
“How can I eat when these little ones are crying of hunger? My only problem is that I have ulcer that is killing me gradually because I cannot even remember the last time I took my drugs. The pain is so much that at times I just wished that death would come faster. Rather, it seemed to avoid me for the little ones instead.’
Similarly, another grandmother, Kaka Dame, lamented that her deteriorating health condition and the general conditions of living in the IDPs camp has taken such a huge toll on her and the others such that all they now crave is the opportunity to return to their homes and die there in peace.
Despite the scare of the novel coronavirus, the IDPs are not perturbed because their lives have been under threat before now.
They are unanimous that, hunger, poor hygiene, want and insecurity are worse viruses than the new dreaded disease.
“Whatever it is, we know that it will not reach us. But if it comes, we will be happy that this whole life of pain and suffering will end”, some of the IDPs said.