More than 25,000 Nigerians gone missing, some committing suicide
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
An increasing number of Nigerians have been committing suicide since the Muhammadu Buhari years of the locust, according to one set of reports.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) disclosed in another report that more than 25,000 other Nigerians have been registered with the Red Cross as missing in the past decade alone.
ICRC Nigeria Public Relations Officer Aliyu Dawobe explained the 25,000 missing people are those whose relatives came and requested for the Red Cross to register their cases.
“ICRC Nigeria started family unification in 2013 in Nigeria alongside the Nigerian Red Cross society,” he said.
“[The families of] the 25,000 missing persons are only a fraction of people who are aware that ICRC is helping to reunite separated/missing family members. They register their cases and there are over 25,000 cases of such.”
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Number of missing persons could drop
Dawobe stressed the number of missing persons in Nigeria “could drop because some people can get reunited with their families without the ICRC knowing or being informed.”
A document produced by ICRC Nigeria confirmed more than 400 people were traced and contact with their families was restored, and families of 563 people in detention received news of their loved ones, per reporting by The PUNCH.
Besides, 580 civilians restored contact with their families through Red Cross Messages and 17 unaccompanied children were reunited with their families between January and September 2023, ICRC Nigeria added.
It was learnt the ICRC is organising an international conference for the families of missing persons, with the aim to gather families of missing persons from all around the world to share their plight and to communicate mechanisms and methods they have been using to cope with the trauma.
The conference seeks to assemble families from different places, countries and continents to virtually meet one another to share experiences, develop peer-to-peer support, learn from one another, and adopt positive experiences in their contexts.