M\u00e9decins du Monde, an international humanitarian non-governmental organisation (NGO), has decided it will no longer work in the Damboa Local Government Area of Borno State after a rogue soldier killed one of its employees.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
In November, the aid worker, Alem Muluseta, was stabbed several times and shot dead by the soldier who was described as being \u201ca rogue on the rampage\u201d. He also killed a fellow soldier who was trying to disarm him and shot and wounded a United Nations helicopter pilot.<\/p>\n
After the killing, M\u00e9decins du Monde said it would stop working in Damboa until a decision was reached to either continue or stop its work there permanently.<\/p>\n
Residents in Damboa told RNI reporter Alkali Mustapha that they were extremely worried about the organisation\u2019s decision because they relied heavily on it for health services.<\/p>\n
Abubakar Abbas said: \u201cWhen M\u00e9decins du Monde was working here, we were able to go to hospital immediately if we got sick. They treated us and gave us medicine for free. But since they have stopped working here, we can go to hospital only when we have money. If we don\u2019t have money, we stay at home because there is no way we can afford to buy medicine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are government health centres but they are nowhere near what M\u00e9decins du Monde provided. They don\u2019t have good medicines and we suffer because they don\u2019t give us proper treatment. The medicines are also very expensive.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Kawu Muhammad said M\u00e9decins du Monde\u2019s hospital helped the entire community. It was efficiently run and provided excellent treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now I\u2019m sick but there is no way I can get the same kind of help from government healthcare centres, so I\u2019m just staying at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have pleaded with the authorities to beg the organisation to stay and help us. We want them to continue here. We really need them. Without their care, health services are very expensive and we cannot afford the treatment or medicines. We are begging M\u00e9decins du Monde to continue to help us.\u201d<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n
Aisha Usman said: \u201cWithout the organisation\u2019s aid, we don\u2019t have money to pay for treatment. It has been exceedingly difficult since M\u00e9decins du Monde stopped working here.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs mothers, the absence of the M\u00e9decins du Monde facility has severely affected us because we have children who need proper healthcare. But we are poor people and we cannot do anything without the organisation\u2019s aid.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDamboa residents and all those living in the neighbouring communities are suffering. M\u00e9decins du Monde treated us all for free. Their absence has created a huge gap, not only because of the healthcare treatment they provided but also the psychological needs of people in the community. They taught us many things, such as how spouses can coexist peacefully,\u201d said Mallam Ali.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter what time of day or night, they were always on hand to treat us. They used to see at least 100 patients a day. We want them to come back. We really and truly need them.\u201d<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n
M\u00e9decins du Monde had been working in Damboa for at least five years before the shocking shooting incident. But the killing of their aid worker by the soldier was just too much and the organisation has no intention of returning at this stage, despite residents\u2019 desperate pleas for them to change their mind.<\/p>\n
AISHA SD JAMAL<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
M\u00e9decins du Monde, an international humanitarian non-governmental organisation (NGO), has decided it will no longer work in the Damboa Local Government Area of Borno State after a rogue soldier killed one of its employees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":27028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51028"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51028"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51029,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51028\/revisions\/51029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}