(By Sylvanus Viashima – JALINGO)
Senator Aisha Alhassan, the Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, has assured internally displaced persons (IDPs) that their stay in the camps as refugees would soon be over as the President was making big efforts to ensure that they return to their various homes safely.
The minister gave her assurance yesterday at the IDP camp in Mutum Biyu, Taraba state, while on a fact-finding mission on allegations of sexual harassment of female IDPs across the country.
Alhassan, who distributed food and non-food relief materials to the IDPs, said that the federal government was determined to fast track the process of safe return of the IDPs to their original homes and normal lives, but would not relent in efforts to ameliorate their suffering while still in the camps.
“The federal government is doing everything possible to ensure that you return to your homes and continue with your normal lives in safe neighborhoods. But while you are still in the camps we would stop at nothing to check the hardships that you have to put up with.
“This is while the President has mandated me to go round all the camps to verify the allegations that some of the female IDPs are being sexually harassed by government officials, and to provide you with food items to reduce your hunger and other materials to provide basic comfort,” she said.
Alhassan said she could not disclose her findings yet until she reports to the President.
Camp leader Ahmed Waliyu informed the minister that the over 1,690 persons in the camp were victims of ‘political Boko Haram’ as their oppressors are also their neighbors who are bent on sending them away from their homes for political reasons. He called on the federal and state governments to intensify efforts to end their days in the camp.
Waliyu also complained that the IDPs were in dire need of water food, and medical care as they were vulnerable to snakebites and other ailments due to the deplorable conditions at the camp.
Items distributed include rice, millet, corn, vegetable oil, Noodles, mattresses, wrappers, toiletries and other valuables.
The more than 1,690 IDPs currently residing in the camp are victims of ethnoreligious crises from southern and Central parts of the state.