Foundation donates food items to Benue IDPs

A non-GOVERNMENTAL organisation based in Jos, Plateau State — Stefanos Foundation has donated assorted food items worth over N6.7m to 10,400 households at the Tse-Ayande Internally Displaced Camp (IDP), North- Bank, Makurdi Local Council of Benue State.

The items include 38 bags of rice, 34 bags of beans, 18 bags of garri, 900 tubers of yam, 18 20-litre kegs of palm and vegetable oil, 180 cartons of indomie, as well as bags of clothes.

Founder of the NGO, Mark Lipdo, while addressing the IDPS, yesterday, expressed disgust over the humanitarian crisis ravaging the camp.

He called on United Nations and other international organisations to come to the victims’ aid.

Lipdo explained that they got wind of the plight of people living in the camp in January 2021, when they came to appraise the situation and became more concerned after several contacts to know that the inmates at the camp continued to multiply in hundreds.

He commended the camp’s Chairman for coordinating the people, advising him to ensure that every household in the camp get equal share of the food items, irrespective of where they come from.

In his remarks, the Benue State Coordinator of the foundation, Dr. Daniel Dam said the foundation has been in the state since 2006 and has traversed several local councils that witnessed humanitarian crisis.

Earlier, while briefing the NGO team, the camp chairman, Yem Daniel, said inmates of the camp came from different local councils of Nasarawa State, including Awe and Kyiana, due to herdsmen attack in Benue and Taraba states.

Daniel lamented that since they came to stay in the camp, they have not enjoyed any government presence, except a little assistance from small NGOs and church bodies, noting that they mostly engage in menial jobs to make ends meet.