No one in the Borno State-run internally displaced persons’ Gubio Camp has died from starvation yet but residents say it is a miracle and hundreds – if not thousands – will die shortly if they do not get food.
Children, the ill – especially in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic – and the elderly are most at risk.
The camp, which is about 16km outside Maiduguri, was opened in 2015 and houses IDPs from Abadam, Bama, Kala Balge, Gwoza, Konduga, Kukawa, Jere, Marte, Monguno, Ngala and Nganzai, among others, including some from Nigeria’s close neighbour countries.
The IDPs were forced from their hometowns by persistent deadly attacks by insurgents, first by members of the Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’way Wa’l-Jihād (JAS), better known as Boko Haram, and later from its splinter group, the Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP).
The camp is home to about 30,000 IDPs.
RNI reporter Fatima Grema Modu spoke to two residents, who confirmed that many, if not most, of the camp’s residents were at risk of dying from starvation, adding that some were already “very close to dying of hunger”.
They said the residents had no help from the government or non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for at least three months.
IDP Ari Malam Fatori said: “We face extreme hunger on a daily basis and it is difficult to survive. We send some of the children outside the camp, and even some of the women, to beg in the streets. Some of the women sell groundnuts if they have any but they get only about ₦200 for them.
“The men do not have a job and sometimes we go outside the camp to find and fetch wood. But it’s dangerous and, even if we get wood, there is no food to cook. We prefer to stay in the camp where we are safe.”
Falmata Mele said: “Every day it becomes more difficult to survive. Most times when we go out to beg, we don’t get enough money to buy food and, if we don’t get anything, we go to sleep hungry. If things continue like this we are going to die. Many people are already sick.”
Alhaji Mustapha Ali, the chairman of the camp, confirmed that residents had not received food assistance from anyone for the past three months and most of the IDPs were starving.
“For more than week now, I have been contacting and trying to follow up with officials. I told them the IDPs were desperately hungry and had not received food from either the government or NGOs. Some men go out to get wood but there’s no food to cook even if they find it. It is the ill, the old and children who are most at risk of dying. It is hard to live without food for three days, let alone three whole months.”
He said many of the IDPs had resorted to begging but said it was dangerous for the children who might get run over or hit by a car and the women were exposed to the added danger from men offering them money for sex.
“Earlier the government allowed the World Food Programme (WFP) to distribute food to the residents. But then the WFP stopped delivering food. When we asked them why, they told us the government had directed them to stop. They promised to resume distributing food when the government gave them permission.”
Ali pleaded with the government to help the IDPS. “The government should please look into the plight of these people and provide much-needed foodstuff. And, if they refuse, they should at least help the residents to return to their communities where they could try to make a living and feed their families.”
The IDPs said they had asked the public to help them, saying their lives were in the balance if they did not receive food urgently.
AISHA JAMAL
