Victims’ Support Fund to Provide Basic Social Amenities to Niger IDPs

Abuja-based humanitarian NGO, the Victims Support Fund (VSF), says it will support Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Niger with basic social amenities to improve their living conditions. Prof. Nana Tanko, VSF’s Executive Director, stated this while speaking on Sunday, in Shiroro, during an assessment visit to the Kwada and Kuta IDPs’ camps in the local government.

She said that the visit by the Fund had revealed the dire situation of the many IDPs in the state who needed help, since government alone could not cater for them. “The interaction with some of the IDPs revealed that Boko Haram insurgents are in Niger state. We found out from some of the IDPs that they were displaced by the Boko Haram as the insurgents hoisted their flags in their communities after the attacks,” she said.

Tanko said that since the security situation had not improved in their respective communities, the IDPs would continue to stay in the camps. “However, they are staying here with a lot of constraints because from what we have seen here the state government alone cannot help them“. The shock that I have is that with all the humanitarian agencies, development partners we have in Nigeria there is none supporting the IDPs. “The only support they have received is from the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs as well as the National Refugees Commission,” she said.

Tanko also lamented the failure of regular agencies, that should be working with government agencies to render help to the IDPs, to do their jobs. She also noted that because many of the IDPs’ camps were located in school premises across the state, they had disrupted academic activities of many primary and secondary schools. “The IDPs are sharing spaces with their various host communities, inconveniencing them and disrupting academic activities. “There, children cannot access formal education, as well as the children of their hosts. So, because of the situation, we have a crisis on our hands. Therefore, something has to be done urgently to remedy the situation“.

We really have to intervene quickly in the area of education by supporting them with writing materials, uniforms, books and sandals,” she said. She said that the Fund would provide food and other means of livelihood for the IDPs because they have many children in the camps, noting further that there was also the need for clinics in the camps, to improve their poor health conditions. Tanko said that the VSF was in the state at the instance of the Chairman, Lt.-Gen. Theophilus Danjuma (rtd), following an appeal by the state government for help.

Malam Ahmed Inga, Director General, Niger State Emergency Management Agency (NSEMA), said that there were about 20 IDPs camps across the state, though he could not give the total population of IDPs in the state because of incessant attacks by suspected bandits and insurgents. Inga cited the case of the 5,000 IDPs in Kwada camp, Shiroro Local Government Area, who were from Kawuri that was recently attacked by Boko Haram. “We are not in a hurry to send them back until the security situation in their areas improved because their lives are important,” he said, explaining that they had been in the camp for two years now.

Inga appealed to NGOs and spirited individuals to partner with the state government to cater for the many IDPs across the state because government could not do it alone. Mr Habibu Musa, Desk Officer, IDPs camp in Kwada, said that the 5,000 IDPs in the camp were from more than 10 communities in Shiroro, while Mr Yusuf Kuta, his counterpart at the Kuta camp, said there were 90 men, 884 women and 2,510 children, making a total of 3,484 IDPs in the camp.

Rev. John Samari, one of the IDPs in Kwada, said that there was faced with the challenge of inadequate food, accommodation, medicines, among others, in the camp. He appealed to the Federal and state governments to tackle the insecurity so that they could return home and live a normal lives.