Internally Displaced Persons of the recently demolished DURUMI camp Abuja, have appealed to the Federal Government to come to their aid by resettling them into new camps.
Terrorist activities in the North East states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, forcing thousands whose communities were destroyed by the insurgents to relocate.
A sizeable number of these internally displaced persons found their way to Abuja in search of refuge and have been here for years
Make shift IDP camps sprung up in areas like Durumi , Kuje, Kuchingoro and have in time been recognised by INGOS and other charity organisations who provided social amenities like schools, health care centres, and water systems in these camps.
By 2021, the FCTA recorded over twenty six thousand IDPs resident in the FCT.
With criminal activity on the upswing, the FCT authorities have had to contend with an influx of undesirable characters into the capital city.
And attention had been brought to IDP camps for harboring criminal elements., that coupled with the fact that insecurity is still very much an issue across the country.
Last December, demolitions were carried out by the FCTA just before Christmas to curb the rise in alleged criminal activities in the Nation’s capital .
The IDP Camp in Durumi was one of the areas affected.
The IDPs have been left to fend for themselves, with no food, shelter, or assistance of any kind.
A widow, identified as Rebecca Isa who now lives in this rapidly constructed shelter within the demolished camp with her sister and her children .
She tells TVC News crew that surviving has become much harder for her and her family as food and water have become harder to source for. (Spoke in Hausa)
Her nephew Lawal Bala Sambo , who is a mechanic at the camp laments that they fled to Abuja with hopes of finally having peace but it appears they were mistaken in their projections.
An elderly couple in the camp who were also affected by the incident, Ibrahim Warda and his wife Liaetu Ibrahim are appealing to the Federal Government to help get their lives back in order . (Spoke in Hausa)
This incident has only added to their worries, their two children are in school and they will be unable to pay for their fees, this session due to the incident .
Adamu Abdullahi, a builder, is helping to rebuild shelters for IDPs
He is not happy with the situation and would have loved to relocate but he feels the crisis back home is yet to abate .
He is angry at insinuations that the camp harboured criminals which is why it was demolished
He insist that if the FCTA was suspicious about their activities it should have carried out investigations rather than demolishing the camp
His argument that the land is not Federal Government land but was given by an individual for IDPs to settle until there is peace in the Northeast may explain why they also ran foul.
All lands in the FCT belong to the Federal Government with districts already demarcated for specific functions.
Most of these IDPS come from Gwoza a local government area in Borno state which is known to be the Centre of the crisis.
Director General FCT Emergency Management Agency FEMA , Abbas Garba Idris sympathizes with the situation the IDPs find themselves, he points out that as far as the authorities are concerned, there are no existing camps in Abuja.
He describes where the IDPs currently reside are chosen settlements.
Mr. Idris presents a compelling argument noting that according to the Kampala convention, such arrangements as camps can only be established very close to scene of the incidents which in this case is the Northeast
So far, the IDP Camp in DURUMI was singled out for demolition due to investigation carried out by the authorities .
The FEMA chief urged IDPs to fully co-operate with the security agencies and not act in ways that would compromise the safety of the Federal Capital, and while they are free to stay in the FCT, they can’t establish camps.
But these remain semantics, the reality on ground is that if the FCTA does not provide measures to provide relief for the IDPs suddenly left homeless, a humanitarian crisis may slowly be brewing.
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