From Scholastica Hir, Makurdi
The Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management in Benue State, Aondowase Kunde, yesterday disclosed that criminals had infiltrated the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp opened for victims of Yelwata attack.
The camp is located at the Ultra International Market located along George Akume Way in Makurdi, the state capital.
Kunde told newsmen that people from the host community and market women have all left their homes and relocated to the camp.
According to him, the criminals on Friday night broke into the camp and stole some non-food items like the mattresses that were given to pregnant and nursing mothers while market women too invaded the camp, buying off food items distributed to the displaced persons.
He said: “We’ve been having issues in the camp for the past two days and we discovered a lot of infiltrators in the camp. We conducted investigations after the protest and discovered that criminals and people from the host community in Makurdi were behind the protest.
“So we resolved that we have to be at the camp by 4am today (yesterday) to fish out those criminals and we discovered that they stole mattresses, taking advantage of the market area where the fence collapsed to access the camp.
“We discovered that some market women have started coming to the camp to buy off rice and food items distributed to displaced persons.
“Residents from outside the communities as well as IDPs from the mega camp and those from North have all emptied here.
“We also discovered that some women who were claiming to be lactating mothers went out to borrow babies from outside to be able to access the camp when they discovered that the first set of people we were attending to were pregnant women and lactating mothers.
“When these so-called lactating mothers were asked to breast feed their babies, we discovered there was no milk coming out of their breast.”
Kunde, who expressed the commitment of the state to catering for the needs of the displaced population, and said government would not accept such behaviours in the camp.
He said 50 fake displaced persons had been arrested while investigation was ongoing to fish out other perpetrators of the theft.