“We have nothing. No shelter, no food, no clothes. We are in agony. We are hungry. And no one is helping us.”
Six days after a raging and devastating fire swept through their camp, the internally displaced persons of Muna Garage El Badawe – sitting next to their burnt-out tents and shelters under the hot sun – looked sad and despondent.
RNI had returned to the camp to see how the victims of the fire were coping and found most were not coping at all.
In the early hours of Thursday, November 4, the fire – thought to have been caused by a kerosene stove – raged through the camp. Three people, including a two-and-a-half year old toddler, died; many were seriously burnt and injured and had to be hospitalised; and an estimated 500 tents and shelters were razed to the ground.
Fatima Umar, a mother of seven, said that if her neighbours in the camp had not helped, she could have lost her children in the fire.
“They helped me get the children out of the shelter and away from the fire.”
But now she was left with nothing and said she was also losing hope. “We do not have a shelter. The fire destroyed everything we owned. It even burnt our foodstuff.”
Umar said the victims of the fire had not received any help or relief aid from government authorities.
“We are hungry. Sometimes neighbours help us out and we are lucky to have food once a day. Many other victims of the fire have resorted to begging outside the camp because that is the only way to get money to feed themselves,” she said.
An elder, Musa Ari, who has about 20 families under his care, said they faced great hardship. “I feel pain and worry about my family because I cannot provide for them. I lost everything in the fire. If I had managed to get my pocket money out in time, I would have been able to at least find a shelter for us.”
Ummi Umar, a mother of two, said: “Since the fire we have had to sleep in an open space in the cold, with mosquitoes everywhere. We have not had any help from anyone. We can’t even protect ourselves from malaria because we do not have blankets, mattresses and, more importantly, mosquito nets. We need help from the authorities. They must do something because we are exposed to danger in this open field.”
Mustapha Modu, the camp secretary, said the Borno State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), as well as international aid organisations, such as the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) had visited the camp to assess the destruction.
“But, so far, they have not done anything to ease the hardship of the people. Only the IOM [International Organisation for Migration] has been into the camp educating the people on what measures to follow to prevent further fire outbreaks.”
Modu said that it was dangerous for the women and children who were now sleeping in open fields, exposed to the cold weather at night.
The residents of the camp needed help urgently, he said.
He called on the government and NGOs to come to their aid and to help them with relief materials and other essential items.
“We need immediate help. It is a matter of great urgency.”
