Follow Us on Google
Sylvanus Viashima, Jalingo
In the last four months, more than 5000 persons in Taraba State were displaced by various crises. Most of the victims, left with little or no options, took refuge in the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps.
But they have since realised that lodging in the IDP camps is a lot different from the comforting luxury of their respective homes. Apart from the stark, cold loneliness that remind them of home, hunger has become their most potent enemy of late. It is either what is provided is grossly insufficient or it is prepared in bad taste.
At Kona Primary School’s IDP Camp, some of the displaced persons have sad stories to tell. They said they are dying of hunger, despite the public relations statements by governance actors that all is well with them in the camps.
According to 40-year-old Simple Rufus, he has never experienced anything close to the kind of hunger being experienced since coming to the camp: “I am a farmer, so was my father before he died. We don’t have money and have never been a wealthy family, but one thing we never lacked at all was food.
“All year round, we always had food abundantly. We sold food and shared to some of our relatives throughout the year. So, even when my father died, I just carried on in the same way.
“Last year alone, I kept more than 10 bags of maize, three bags of rice and beans and over 500 tubers of yams that I harvested from my farm for our feeding. This is outside what we usually sell to get money for school fees and medical attention of our children.
“When the herdsmen attacked our village, they burnt down my house and barns, destroying everything, including the harvest I had stored for sale. Now, we have nothing, not even food to eat.
“My heart bleeds each time I see my children crying for hunger. In most cases, they go to their mother who is just as helpless as I am. They are not used to hunger, but now, they are forced to grapple with it. I feel so miserable seeing my children starve. There is very little I can do about it.
“My maize farm is ready and by now we are supposed to start eating yam from my farm. But we cannot go to any of those farms because the armed herdsmen are there, waiting to kill anyone who comes around. They are harvesting our maize and feeding their cattle on our farms while we are dying of hunger here.
“My worst fear is that, since our farms are being destroyed and we cannot go to the farms for fear of being killed by the herdsmen, I see a food crisis in the nearest future. In the end, even if we don’t die of their bullets and matchetes, we would die of starvation that they created.”
Chief Augustine Njenmang, the paramount ruler of Kona also raised the alarm over the plights of displaced persons. He appealed to government to rehabilitate victims of herdsmen attacks on Kona communities in Jalingo and Ardo Kola local governments. He decried the devastation occasioned by the crisis, adding that the displaced people were still living in deplorable condition in camps. He added that they cannot even go back to their farms as a result of the siege by the armed herdsmen on their lands.
He noted that the early return and rehabilitation of the victims to their places of origin is expedient to avoid an impending food crisis in the area and the state generally: “Our people are itching to go back to continue with their economic activities but the attackers are still killing people. We have lost 64 people to the crisis already. It is regrettable.
“Already, those people in the IDPs camp are almost starving because there is an acute food shortage to feed them. Each time you visit them, you have no choice but to leave in tears. The rate at which children who were looking very healthy, the rate at which they have emaciated and looking starved is heart breaking.”
He called on the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to expedite action to provide relief materials to the people and called on the Federal Government to provide an “unbiased security officials to enable the people return home to continue with their lives.”
While commending a number of faith-based organisations for their support to the IDPs, the traditional ruler appealed to well meaning Nigerians to also assist.
An elder, Mr Gabriel Gbanger, expressed concern that if urgent measures were not taken to address the acute food shortage in the camps, some of the IDPs especially the children who are under five years of age, may risk severely acute malnutrition in the weeks to come:
“I was at the camp earlier to visit the IDPs and what I saw has given me great concern. These people are starving. They are now vulnerable to all kinds of infections and diseases. Apart from not having enough to eat, they survive on the same food type that is anything but a balanced diet.
“I am particularly concerned that if the situation is not addressed urgently, some of the children who are under the ages of five may become severely acutely malnourished, and it will become very difficult to manage them.
“At a time the world is working so hard to get rid of severely acute malnutrition in children because of the danger it portends to the society and the future of these children, this situation is most worrisome.”
A widow, Mrs Magdalene Sansani, projected that the current hardship is nothing but the beginning of the end for her and her three children: “Since my husband died four years ago, I have worked so hard to build on the foundation he laid to make sure that we always have enough to eat and to sponsor my children to school.
“This year, my harvest that I have been keeping to sell in preparation for the new academic session has been completely destroyed. How can I raise money to train my children in school again?
“But that is not even my worry right now. I wake up everyday to see my children deteriorating because they barely feed these days, and there is nothing I can do about it.
“I believe we are all going to die once and for all. I see the end at hand. I just didn’t expect that my children would ever be subjected to this kind of life.
“Since the attacks by armed herdsmen in Kona villages started months ago, one thing that has remained of great concern is the potential food crisis.”
While the state government and Catholic Church are making efforts to ameliorate their plights by providing some food items from time to time, the Federal Government and people of good will and global organisations may need to urgently intervene in the plights of the people to avert a catastrophe.
