85,000 IDPs resettled in central region, says Red Cross

More than 85,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have been resettled in their home villages in Nigeria’s central region in the past two months, Red Cross officials said on Tuesday.

The IDPs, mostly of the Tiv ethnic group, had fled ethnic and communal clashes that wracked the states of Nasarawa, Plateau, Taraba and Benue between June and November 2001.

"Since April at least 85,000 people have returned to Taraba State from Benue State," Alhaji M.D. Lawan, the Red Cross official overseeing the central region, told IRIN. "Most of the people in camps set up in Taraba have also left," he added.

According to Lawan, the Taraba State government provided transport to move most of the displaced who were settled in camps in Ibi, Dan Anache and Gosun local government areas. He said though the IDPs lacked adequate shelter and food, their discomfort was reduced by the Taraba government which provided them transport to their respective places.

"Most are now back in their farms planting with the rainy season now underway," he added.

During the fighting which pitted Tivs against their Jukun neighbours, four camps were also set up by the Taraba government at Bali, Mutum-Biu, Wukari and Jalingo. But Lawan said all these camps have now been vacated by IDPs.

However, Benson Attah, another Red Cross official who recently visited camps in Benue State, said about 5,000 IDPs were still staying at Daudu and Ukpiam, while a third camp at Agache had been vacated.

Most of the people at these two camps, he said, fled clashes last year in Kwam Pam and Shendam in Plateau State as well as fighting between Tivs and Hausa-speaking Azeris in Nasarawa State. "Those left are people who have lost their homes and do not feel safe enough to go back," Attah told IRIN.

He said the Nigerian Red Cross and the Catholic Relief Services had provided relief assistance until April. "Since then no assistance had been forthcoming until our recent intervention two weeks ago when we provided food rations and gave health and sanitation assistance," he said. "We have launched an appeal on their behalf and are still awaiting response," Attah added.

More than 1,000 people died and hundreds of thousands were displaced in the communal violence which swept Nigeria’s central region last year. The situation was aggravated after the military became embroiled in the Tiv-Jukun conflict when 19 soldiers were killed by a Tiv militia. Reprisal attacks were launched against several Tiv settlements by soldiers during which at least 200 people were killed, scores of houses destroyed and tens of thousands of people forced from their homes.