Insurgency in North-East: Thousands in dire straits as supports dry up in border towns

Hundreds of thousands of displaced persons and asylum seekers are trapped in border towns in the North-East following years of insurgency. Currently, there is fear of a fresh wave of Boko Haram resurgence in the region, especially in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states. The situation is made even more pathetic with donor funding gradually drying up, and intervention agencies forced to slowly fold up humanitarian interventions in the region as the crisis lingers. TINA ABEKU paints a portrait of suffering and neglect of the displaced, and also stresses the dire need to tackle this debilitating ordeal that hapless citizens are subjected to.

Jugule Ahmed, 56, is among many indigenes of Gwoza in Borno State, who abandoned their homes to escape wanton and unrestrained killings perpetrated by Boko Haram in 2014.

“Boko Haram terrorists are still in Gwoza,” Ahmed told a group of visiting journalists on a humanitarian mission to the North-East recently.

Only three days later, his claim was substantiated as news of multiple suicide bomb attacks at a wedding ceremony, an army checkpoint, a shopping mall, and a burial ground, went viral, sending shockwaves and sparking fears of a resurgence of the deadly group’s activities, which appeared to have simmered.

Sitting under a shade, swatting flies, he slowly recounted sadly, how he was forced to leave home with his wife, Thuma, and three children to seek refuge in Madagali, a town located in Adamawa bordering Borno State and the Republic of Cameroon.

“They chased us all from our homes, and as we all scampered for safety with our loved ones, many were killed in the process. I lost two of my brothers; one in Bama, and the other in Lokodisa,” Ahmed narrated.

Ahmed escaped from his home in Bulawaziri with 10 bags of Guinea Corn but later lost everything on the way as the insurgency raged on.

He did not only lose the grains, but also one of his sons, who was enrolled in the Almajiri system before he was captured by insurgents, taken to Sambisa Forest, and killed alongside some Nigerian soldiers.

According to him, barely six months after escaping to Madagali, the terrorists sacked hordes of communities in Borno State and advanced to Madagali where he had just settled with his family. Once again, he was forced to move his family to safety. Unfortunately, his wife, Thuma, and two of his children were captured by Boko Haram fighters. They forcefully married her.

“After the first Boko Haram fighter that married her (wife) died, she was again married off to another fighter. Although she has contacted me that she wants to return, I cannot take her back, and I learned she is still in Gwoza Town.

“Taking my wife and children while I was in Madagali after another attack made me distressed, but my three children later returned after two years because they were rescued by the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC),” he said.

After wandering from place to place, Ahmed finally found solace in an Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp in Angwan Kara, Damare, in Mubi, Adamawa State, which is being managed by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) with shelter support by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). This IDP camp is home to 167 households consisting of 1,200 individuals.

It was not long after Ahmed settled down at the camp before he was elected the camp chairman. That notwithstanding, his hope is for all in his camp to be safe, far from danger, and to find a means of livelihood to rebuild their lives and secure a good future for their children.

He said: “Our villages are still not safe and we cannot go back there to farm. I am a farmer and I cannot even go back to Maiduguri, Pulka, or Bulawaziri in Gwoza, because Boko Haram is still there. I lost a lot of relatives, including one of my sons. Seven of my cows were taken away by the Boko Haram members; they also took N100,000 from me when they attacked our village in January 2014. I ran first to Madagali, then to Askira Uba, but I also had to run away from Askira to this place, Damare camp.”

Asked if he was willing to return home since the Borno State government is working to resettle those displaced by the insurgency, he said: “Our villages are still not safe since I left home in 2014. I cannot go back there for now.”

The story is not much different for 60-year-old Tani John and her 19-year-old daughter, Lami, who escaped death from the village of Goshi, in Gwoza and found their way to the IOM IDP camp in Mubi after witnessing the killing of many by the dreaded Boko Haram terrorists.

Pathetic as Ahmed and John’s dilemma appears to be, hundreds of thousands of others are experiencing even more torrid times in the North-East corridor as insurgency buffets the area rapaciously.

Interestingly, while the lives of many persons in the North-East have technically been put on hold on account of the internal displacements that they have to contend with, the rest of the country is moving around in circles with the quality of life worsening daily.

Intervention agencies to the rescue
INTERVENTIONS from organisations such as the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), and others have become a major lifeline for individuals like Ahmed who, along with their families, face internal displacements.

According to the IOM Camp Manager of Angwan Kara, Damare Murtala Bawa: “The refugees want to stay in Adamawa State because it is safer than Borno State. Most of them came from the most troubled places in Borno State such as Gwoza.”

Presently in Adamawa State, at least 30,000 people are seeking refugee status to ensure the protection of their rights and to escape abuses in the hands of some errant security operatives, especially in the garrison towns of Michika and Madagali.

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), and the National Commission for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI), thousands fleeing death are now seeking asylum in Nigeria, hoping to elevate their refugee status, but so far, only 14,788 have been registered as refugees between May and December 2023 out of an estimated 30,000 asylum seekers in the state.

At a refugee registration centre in Mubi North Local Council Secretariat, NCFRMI Head, Yola Field, Zainab Sufyan, confirmed that these asylum seekers came from neighbouring countries including Cameroon and Niger Republic. They consist of those that came into Nigeria through four locations: Madagali, Mubi North, Mubi South, and Michika, even from Maiha Local Council all in Adamawa State.

Supported by the UNHCR, the NCFRMI has commenced fresh registration for asylum seekers to provide them with legal documents to live as refugees in Nigeria and to enable them to benefit from government support and interventions from non-governmental organisations.

Sufyan explained: “Most of the 23,000 asylum seekers across the state “are staying in host communities. It is only in Madagali that they stay in the Mobile Police barrack. When they arrive, they stay in nearby communities such as Sabon Gari, and Angwam Kara, in Mubi. On May 12, 2023, we gave them some food items and non-food items,” Sufyan said.

However, the asylum seekers are not making the registration process very easy because of the absence of requirements needed to go through the entire process successfully. For example, each applicant is expected to get registered by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to complete registration and attain refugee status. This status qualifies an individual to benefit from interventions and ensures the protection of their rights.

However, the displaced persons consider the NIMC registration a nearly impossible task, the reason being that the NIMC office closest to them is virtually comatose, and barely functions due to lack of electricity and photocopying materials, among others. To overcome these challenges, applicants have to provide money for fuel, buy photocopying papers, and any other items required for the NIMC registration.

Unfortunately, NIMC officials at the Local Council are helpless as they are left to fend for themselves.

Some donor agencies and intervening partners, who spoke to The Guardian on the plight of the officials and applicants, alleged that the NIMC office is not being funded, and hence could not function except applicants provide what is needed to get registered.

An official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that there was no provision from the NIMC Headquarters in Abuja for running the office, and that explains why applicants must power the office and provide materials for the process.

“We have nothing to work with here. There are no funds to get printing papers. So, at a maximum, we can register up to 50 persons daily, and if we are very lucky, we can register up to 100 persons. Applicants (refugees) sometimes go out to make photocopies of the documents needed. They also task themselves to buy fuel. We have complained severally to Abuja, but we are told to exercise patience, but nothing has been done over the years. Even our state offices are run by individuals because money is not being provided at the federal level,” the official lamented.

Malnutrition rises as donor funding dries up
THE challenge of terrorists sacking communities from their homes has in more than a decade left a huge humanitarian crisis in the North-East, especially in neighbouring border towns of countries like Cameroon and Chad. As the numbers rise with no end in sight, millions are left stranded in these border states.

Adamawa State is believed to be home to millions of displaced persons fleeing terrorism in Borno State and neighbouring countries of Cameroon and Niger.

However, the intervention agencies are worried because international donor support is drying up. The result is that the challenges are getting more daunting with many lacking shelter, water, hygiene, and sanitation. This encourages open defecation with its attendant health complications such as acute malnutrition among children.

Aid workers at the NRC, in partnership with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), are racing against time to provide much-needed humanitarian assistance to victims in the state.

In May, the UNOCHA Nigeria Office in its yearly “Lean Season Prediction” declared that 4.8 million people are estimated to be facing severe food insecurity, the highest level in seven years, citing the government-led Cadre Harmonisé analysis released in March this year.

The report also indicates that children, pregnant and lactating mothers, older persons, and people living with disabilities are the most vulnerable, hence the UN body appealed for a Lean Season Food Security and Nutrition Crisis and Multi-sector Plan that targets 2.8million of these victims with much-needed help for survival.

But as the lean season approaches, malnutrition is already taking its toll on communities in the state with an estimated 47,567 children suffering severe malnutrition as evidenced by Mubi South Stabilisation Centre for Severe and Acute
Malnutrition managed by the ICRC.

Seventeen-month-old Sumaiyya from Mubi is in the acute malnutrition section. Her mother, Khadija Hamza, said she noticed that her baby was not eating well just before the Eid el Kabir celebration.

According to her, she tried to manage her at home but realised that her health was deteriorating. “I initially thought it was a teething problem when she began to refuse food. But I think she is having worms in her stomach. I tried my best to take care of her because I had a set of twins that died before giving birth to her after a 13-year gap. So, she is my only child,” she said.

Head of the stabilisation centre, Dr Mark Malgwi, said as the lean season sets in, it signals the peak period for increased cases of severe and acute malnutrition.

“Normally, the peak of admission is around June, but as of May, we had about 63 patients per month. But around November and December, it reduces. In August also, we used to have peak admissions, and this is because malaria and related diseases are very high during this season. Here, malnourished children are taken care of. Whenever they come, we admit them and give them the necessary care where the management can be continued until they are finally discharged, or if there is a need for referral, we do that. Those who are out-patients; we stabilise them and allow them to go,” he said.

Noting that the centre had 73 patients in May, while that of June was yet to be tallied, the medical practitioner added that the season affects the number of cases recorded.

Dr Malgwi explained: “We usually do an investigation to understand the complications that come with severe, acute malnutrition. Some of the children come with pneumonia, typhoid, diarrhoea, and vomiting, while some even come with tuberculosis. All these must be diagnosed to understand the complications. We admit patients from zero to 59 months, that’s the criteria for admission here, and we segregate them at the end of each month.”

He said the centre lacked water access and electricity, adding that the installation of solar power and a borehole have alleviated some of the challenges the centre hitherto faced.

Malgwi, who said that some patients die, depending on when they get admitted explained: “Sometimes, when they bring in a patient, the patient may be gasping for breath. We usually keep the oxygen handy so that we will do all we can to revive them. But sometimes, the patient may not even survive 24 hours before passing on. Our patients come from different places, even from Cameroon or neighbouring villages and states. The feeding and culture of a people could also play a big role in these malnutrition cases,” he said.

He pointed out that some people plant good and nutritious food, but due to poverty and cultural orientation, they do not consume them, instead, they sell them out. It is this lack of nutritious meals that hurts their health, especially children.

“When they come here, we educate them and teach them how to prepare local nutritious meals to get the required and adequate nutrients that the body needs,” he said.

The Nutrition Focal Person for Mubi South Local Council, Grace Madanya, informed us that there is a special milk formula, which they use to feed children at the centre to enable them to quickly come out of severe and acute malnourishment.

She said the special milk formula helps to stabilise the patients and the children still use it after being discharged from the stabilisation centre.

“We used to feed them special milk and food called Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF). Caregivers are also provided with the food. These are all freely provided by the ICRC. The treatment is also free. The ICRC employs 19 staff in the stabilization centre. Three are cleaners, while 16 are health staff. The number of deaths that we record is usually high in the rainy season and less in the dry season. This is due to insufficient food during the rainy and planting season.

“Here we stabilise the children when they come in weak and unable to eat. We treat and admit them for one week so that when they regain appetite, we refer them to where they will continue receiving their treatment,” she said.

Nafisah Shuaibu’s 19-month-old daughter, Ilham who arrived at the centre following bouts of diarrhoea and dysentery was preparing to go to the outpatient unit after coming out of the critical stage and is now stabilised. Other children like Patience and Godiya Harrison are also among the many children who received life-saving intervention from agencies like the ICRCS that depend on donor funding to carry out their humanitarian activities.

Mounting out-of-school children as a fresh challenge
A common challenge faced by the IDPs is rights violations, education access, housing, livelihood, and shelter. However, aid workers insist that education for children of refugees is a major concern because many of these children often miss out on education as they flee from place to place, and sometimes because parents cannot pay for what is required to register them in schools.

With about 12, 100 out-of-school children in Adamawa State alone, the consequences are dire. Of this number, 5, 850 are in Mubi North, while 6, 250 are in Mubi South.

Class congestion is a major problem because the teacher-to-student ratio is most times hard to adhere to, an education technical assistant, Ijidayu Papka informed.

She said: “Our teacher-to-student ratio is 100 students to one teacher (100:1), but the standard is 40 students to one teacher (40:1).”

A visit to Hurida Primary School in Mubi shows that students are learning amid fear as the school environment is not safe and is exposed to the activities of herders and bandits.

The Headteacher of the school, Joel Adamu, said that there is a need for the school to be fenced to provide some degree of safety for the over 200 pupils attending it.

The NRC Field Coordinator, Okoye Uzoma raised concerns over rights violations and protection for victims in the garrison towns of Michika and Madagali.

He noted with concern, reports of extortion of displaced persons by security officers before being allowed to pass through these towns.

Uzoma said these individuals are people suffering rights violations and complex protection concerns like coercion.

According to him, these victims often experience other rights concerns such as denial of inheritance, child labour, forced evictions, especially the widows, and the culture of silence in cases of rape, teenage pregnancy, and neglect of the girl-child.”