With an estimated 1.5 million children from the ages of one to 15 years displaced and are currently ekeing out a miserable living in various IDP camps spread across Adamawa, Borno, Yobe and the FCT, this report details the dire conditions faced by the children.
Adamawa State
The conditions of many in the various IDP camps in Yola, the Adamawa State capital, are to say the least, pathetic; but more worrisome is the plight of children in the camps who by no offense of theirs, were forced by circumstances to become part of the occupants of the pitiable environments.
The story of these children is better imagined than heard as some of them said it was only by the grace of God that they made it alive to the various camps.
Apart from losing loved ones, including parents, brothers, sisters and valuable belongings, these children have also lost the joy and essence of childhood and the perks associated with it.
Many of the children who were traumatised by the effect of so much violence are still reeling in pains of having lost their breadwinners at tender ages while many disclosed that since the unfortunate attacks on their towns and villages, life has never been the same for them.
The most disturbing aspect is even infants have been caught up in the web of the violence that made them displaced persons upon their arrival into the world and have to take sanctuary in the confines of IDP camps.
Following the attacks, many children whose parents have either been killed, or have been in other remote places, have to contend with leaving without the tender care of their parents which is an essential part of the growth process.
Apart from that trauma, the children are left in most cases, to their own devices, as they have to struggle alongside others to get the scarce essentials of life which the camps are able to provide such as food, accommodation, clothing etc.
At the peak of the attacks by insurgents leading to the outpour of many into Yola IDP camps, majority of the camps were filled up with tens of thousands of people, making essential commodities difficult to come by even to the adults, never mind to the toddlers.
For the children who do not have the strength to compete in getting these resources, their plights become more compounded and they have to live at the mercy of accommodating adults, to get crumbs from the scarce resources available.
Most importantly, the children have lost the chance of going to schools as they used to over the years since the insurgents struck, some of them were not privileged to be in the four walls of a classroom.
A displaced child in one of the camps, Amos Zira, who was looking unkempt wearing tattered and dirty clothes, unfortunately said the dress he was wearing was the only piece of cloth he had in the world.
“This is the only clothes I have. I have lost my father who used to buy clothes for me,” the boy lamented.
The plight of young Zira is simply the condition of several of the children who have been bedevilled by similar fate upon the unwelcome visits of the insurgents into their towns and villages.
To fill the educational gap within the ranks of the displaced children, Adamawa State government, in collaboration with UNICEF, has introduced a compulsory basic education for all children within the state, to ensure that all children both in the IDP camps and outside the camps received basic education in the state.
Similarly other NGOs have been working together with the management of the IDP camps to ensure that the welfare of the children is taken care of.
Borno State
Boko Haram’s insurgency in Northeast Nigeria has not only taken its devastating toll on both private and public infrastructure of the region, it has also bruised the human population, leaving in its wake, over 25,000 persons killed and about 2.5 million residents displaced .
In Borno, the hotbed of the Boko Haram conflict, about 65 per cent of the total number of displaced children are being housed in about 22 camps – mostly in Maiduguri, the state capital.
Though camped within the precincts of public schools, most of the children, especially of the school-going age, cannot have normal access to education.
The Borno State government, supported by NEMA and other local and international donor agencies, have made some commendable efforts in the area of feeding, bedding and healthcare provisions to the camp inmates, but hardly on a larger scale cases of ill-health and malnutrition.
Until very recently when UNHCR moved in to assist in erecting 2,500 pavilion tents for over 20,000 IDPs residing in various schools, to be relocated so as to allow schools to reopen formally, most children who lived for nearly two years in camps had no access to education.
Despite the efforts put in place to manage the health needs of inmates in various Borno IDP camps, the continuous increase of IDP population has overwhelmed the healthcare provision there, which in turn made children vulnerable to diseases common to over-crowded environments.
Three IDP camps were also hit by cholera outbreak within Maiduguri, Borno State, claiming the lives of 16 people and hospitalising those who were found in critical conditions.
Medics from World Health Organisation (WHO), and UNICEF had to battle, in collaboration with local health officials, to save lives of others, especially children who were the worse hit.
In some cases, young girls of about 15 and 13 years old, were said to have fallen victims of rape by young men who were also among the IDPs.
Parents of young girls had occasionally lamented that their young daughters have been subtly forced into prostitution due to hunger and their inability to cater for the needs of the young girls who were often lured into sexual relations with young men in the camps.
Another plight of some of the displaced children was that many of them arrived the camps as orphans, having lost their parents to attacks of Boko Haram insurgents.
Most of these kids lack the parental care in the camps: thus, were not getting the best attention especially when they fell sick or needed some serious attention concerning their wellbeing.
Abuja
“The sudden influx of IDPs into the FCT, with attendant security threats, inhuman and degrading conditions under which the IDPs lived, moved the NHRC to convene a national stakeholders’ meeting to consider sustainable measures of addressing their plights in August this year.”
With those words, the Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Commission, Prof Bem Angwe, flagged off the profiling of internally-displaced persons in the Federal Capital Territory on November 19, 2015, three months after the commission laid the groundwork for that humanitarian intervention.
The professor of Law warned that the crisis in the Northern part of the country had spilled over to the Capital, with its attendant implications on the economy and security.
He said the national office of the NHRC, is not even spared of the IDP-problem.
These victims of internal violence have also suffered untold hardship in the hands of the owners of the properties, where they have been squatting since 2013.
According to Angwe, “Some of the IDPs, also trooped to the Headquarters of the commission, seeking protection from possible eviction and harassment from owners of the properties they occupy”.
The NHRC is collaborating in its efforts with National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Department of Security Services (DSS), National Security Adviser’s office, Police, immigration, Red Cross, National Population Commission, State Emergency Management Agencies of Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Bauchi and Nasarawa states in resolving on the plank of its intervention, the NHRC and other stakeholders have advise “governments at all levels, to put in place measures to ensure the facilitation of a durable solution to tackle the challenges facing IDPs in FCT, beginning with safe and voluntary return to safe areas in their states.”
According to the NHRC, “This is against the backdrop of the fact that FCT has no officially designated IDP camps. And so, the settlements available are creations of the IDPs themselves who are, in local parlance, on their own”.
The NHRC said, “The situation was made more precarious by the infiltration into these settlements by those referred to as economic IDPs, who principally invade the camps for want of basic existence of life. These groups of IDPs, more organised in their activities, prevented the little relief and assistance brought to the settlement from reaching the real IDPs.”
According to him, he has “personally visited some of these settlements and the conditions under which these Nigerians live, violate our collective rights as humans. For instance, in this settlement, we are flagging off the exercise this morning, 21 women had given birth through the assistance of traditional birth attendants, because they could not access any hospital or clinic.”
He queried: “The makeshift houses covered with tarpaulin and waterproof, are not even befitting places for even animals. So do we in our collective conscience feel safe and fine when our brothers and sisters are living in this kind of situation?’’
But he disclosed that there was some light at the end of the tunnel, as “The NHRC has received requests from IDPs to return home.”
Angwe stated, “It has become important for government to ascertain the number of people displaced, so as to provide durable solutions for them.”
He concluded, “This calls for action, positive action for you, me, government and we all must play our part so that history will be kind to us.”
According to the Chairman, Inter-agency Committee on the profiling of the IDPs, and Deputy Director at the NHRC, Mr. Lambert Opara, the IDPs were yet to receive the full attention of government, because of the absence of government-designated IDP-camps in Abuja.
“As a result of the absence of camps in the FCT, the IDPs have not received full attention as is obtainable in the North-east where government as well as other stakeholders are providing facilities and relief materials to the displaced persons. Aside living in dehumanising conditions, security at the settlements cannot also be guaranteed.
“In light of the foregoing, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), in collaboration with National Emergency Management Agency, convened a stakeholders’ meeting in August 2015.
The fallout of the meeting was the inauguration of the National Inter-Agency Committee to implement the resolution of the stakeholders.
“Membership of the Committee was drawn from the National Human Rights Commission, National Emergency Management Agency, Nigeria Immigration Service, the Nigeria Police, Nigeria Population Commission, FCT emergency Management Agency, the Red Cross Society of Nigeria, Department of State Services, Office of the National Security Adviser etc,” he stated.
To complement the efforts of the NHRC, the Speaker of the House of Representatives decided to set up the House Committee on IDPs in September.
The Chairman of the Committee on IDPs, Hon Sani Zorro, said, “The House is supportive of the wishes to identify with the initiative of the Commission.”
He added that his committee, will “coordinate all agencies responsible for the welfare of IDPs.”
Fears are rife that the continuing growth of displaced people in Abuja has the potential of heightening insecurity in the Capital in the near future.
Some IDP camps have already been reported hit by terrorists infiltrating these camps, and the country can possibly have more humanitarian crisis on its hands, should the problem of IDP-migration to other parts of the country remain unchecked.
-Leadership