From Uche Nnorom, Makurdi
More than eight Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs in Mbawa camp located in Daudu, Guma local government, home country of Governor Samuel Ortom have died as a result hunger and disease.
Chairman of the camp, Geofrey Torrent confirmed this while speaking with newsmen yesterday.
He lamented at the high incidence of diarrhea and hynea, noting that eight persons died at the camp in five months.
He also explained that IDPs at the camp were living at the mercy of churches and NGOs having been abandoned by government for more than a year.
According to him, ‘the last time the state government supplied food to the camp was on the eve of the Presidential elections in February.
There were several instances where mothers and their children go out to scavenge for food at local markets. Some of them sell firewood from the fast depleting forest around the camp’ The camp chairman further decried that it was in course of searching for food that a 3- year old boy, simply identified as Nani went missing in March, pointing out that the boy is yet to be found.
Torgenga stated that due of the deplorable conditions the IDPs were being sheltered, it was near impossible to sleep at night especially during the rainy season “With the advent of the rains, matters have become worse because the camps are usually flooded so the inmates would have sit until the rain stops falling”, he lamented.
Efforts to get concrete explanation from an official of the State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA Angela Omirigbe who is the camp did not yield any positive fruit as she declined comment on the issue.
A cross section of IDPs who spoke to newsmen including chairlady of the camp , Elder Nyam and Monica Iorhemba frowned at the attitude of government in abandoning them.
It Mbawa camp which has a total of3,515 IDPs was established in January, 2018.
