Benue government, Orker-Jev donate relief materials to IDPs for Yuletide

By : Samson Kukwa-Yanor, Makurdi

Date: 22 December 2022 3:48am WAT

Internally displaced women and children gather at an IDP camp in the Garga Village in the Kanam Local Government Area of the Plateau state on April 12, 2022 after their houses were burnt down in the Kukawa Village during an attack by bandits. - President Muhammadu Buhari vowed on April 12, 2022 there would be no mercy for those behind the killings of more than a hundred people in a series of attacks in central Nigeria. Gunmen raided and ransacked a group of villages there, local sources said, in one of worst attacks this year blamed on heavily armed criminal gangs. Condemning what he called the "heinous" killings, Buhari promised that the perpetrators would receive "no mercy". (Photo by AFP)

The Benue State Government has distributed relief materials to Internally-Displaced Persons (IDPs) for Christmas and New Year celebrations.

Similarly, the lawmaker, representing Benue North West Senatorial District, Emmanuel Yisa Orker Jev, has donated relief materials to provide succour to the IDPs this Yuletide.

Executive Secretary of the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Dr. Emmanuel Shior, who disclosed this during an interaction with newsmen in Makurdi, yesterday, said that items donated by the senator and the state government included 4,000 bags of rice and 5,000 cartons of noodles.

Other items, according to him, include soup condiments (tomatoes, maggi, salts), sleeping materials, beddings and buckets, among others.

Shior, who lamented the persistent attacks on communities in the state, which has resulted in increase in the IDPs, said: “Population of IDPs keep swelling because attackers usually come in during the Harmattan to occupy our land.”

The state government has borne the brunt catering for the IDPs. We hope another government will address the issues and challenges of the IDPs.

“We are working with humanitarian partners and other public-spirited individuals to return them to their homes.”