Focus on displaced people in central region

Twelve year old Terna and his 10 year-old brother Sev- both orphans- are among the latest arrivals at Daudu camp for displaced people on the outskirts of the Benue State capital, Makurdi, in central Nigeria. They had fled into the bush with their mother when soldiers attacked their village, Gbeji, a month earlier and killed their father along with scores of other men, they told IRIN. After two weeks of hiding in the bush, they said, their mother was bitten by a snake. They watched horrified and helpless as she suffered the agony and died the next day. Not knowing what to do, they kept vigil over her body for two days until two men found them and buried the body. The men took them along and after another two weeks of walking through bush paths and avoiding checkpoints mounted by soldiers on the main roads, they finally arrived at the Daudu camp. More than one month after Nigerian soldiers attacked and destroyed several communities inhabited by the Tiv people of Benue State, victims who include men, women and children are still making their way to camps and safe places set up by the state government. The attacks launched by soldiers in armoured vehicles were in apparent reprisal for the killing by a Tiv militia of 19 soldiers sent by the federal authorities to quell fighting between the Tiv and their Jukun neighbours on the border between Benue and Taraba states. In the camps at Agasha, Daudu, Gbajimba, Mutum Biyu, Sankara and Torkula, new arrivals join old camp inmates who fled earlier, not only the Tiv and Jukun clashes, but also clashes in Nasarawa State to the east of Benue that occurred in June and July between the Tiv and Hausa-speaking Azare people. The camps, most of which were set up on primary school compounds, are now overflowing with people. Thatched huts and tents have been put up on every available space while large numbers of people huddle underneath trees to get away from scorching sunshine and daytime temperatures averaging 38 degrees centigrade. Benue State government officials say there are currently more than 550,000 displaced people in the state. “The whole of Benue State is now a displaced peoples’ camp,” John Chokwe, an aide to the governor George Akume, told IRIN. “It is only a fraction that you can find in places designated officially as camps because many have been accommodated in neighbouring villages or taken in by relatives in other towns.” Taking care of the urgent needs of such large numbers of people has become a heavy burden for the state government. Not even the federal government of President Olusegun Obasanjo, which ordered in the troops, has provided any relief assistance for the victims. “We have not got any assistance from anyone except the Red Cross,” Shima Ayati, the state government official in charge of a committee for displaced people, said. “Even food items worth over 10 million naira we put in a central warehouse at Sankara were destroyed by the army.” (1 Naira = US $ 0.008) Nigerian Red Cross officials said they have so far conducted needs assessment surveys in 15 camps in both Benue and Taraba states and found more than 30,000 people in urgent need of both food and non-food assistance. “We finished distributing non-food materials last week and plan to start food distribution this week,” Patrick Bawa, Red Cross spokesman, told IRIN. But, according to the humanitarian agency, the number of people in need of assistance was continually increasing as more displaced people arrive at the camps or other safe locations. Conditions in the camps so far remain very harsh. Food assistance was initially provided by the Benue and Taraba state governments when the camps first opened late last month. But this has now stopped. Most people living in the camps now go out daily to search for food, often opting to work as farm labourers in order to earn some money to provide food and other urgent needs. And because they spent weeks in the bush, most camp residents are in poor health. Women and children were particularly at risk, with some women reported to have given birth while staying in the bush. In the camps, the lack of health facilities coupled with poor sanitary conditions make matters worse. Water supply is generally inadequate and although some pit toilets have been provided, they remain grossly inadequate for the number of people that need them. According to the Nigerian Red Cross many cases of diarrhoea, malaria and conjunctivitis have been reported in the camps. Among the displaced as well are scores of injured people. Those with the most serious cases, such as gunshot injuries or whose limbs were cut off during the ethnic fighting, have been evacuated with Red Cross assistance to hospitals. Most of were taken to the Federal Medical Centre in Makurdi; the Referral Hospital in Mutum Biyu, or Hossanah Hospital, Agasha. Many Nigerians expect the upheavals in the central region to undermine local and national food security both in the short and long run. The central region, one of Nigeria's food baskets, accounts for most root crop foods, such as yam and cassava, as well as cowpea and grains including maize, millet and sorghum. The town of Zaki Biam, which bore the main brunt of the army attacks, was the biggest yam market in the country. “Whatever we do now to ameliorate this very bad situation, the fact remains that it will take these ordinary people, who are mainly farmers, a long time to pick up the pieces and recover what they have lost,” said Chokwe. “And while we wait for that to happen, the damage done to both them and the country will remain immeasurable.”