Addressing health concerns in IDP camps

Such camps dot many parts of the North East region, put in place to accommodate victims of crises, chiefly of the Boko Haram insurgency and inter-communal conflicts. Measles, cholera and other nutrition deficiency ailments claimed the lives of 50 children and 20 adults. Conditions at the camp contributed to worsen the problem. A camp official, […]

Such camps dot many parts of the North East region, put in place to accommodate victims of crises, chiefly of the Boko Haram insurgency and inter-communal conflicts. Measles, cholera and other nutrition deficiency ailments claimed the lives of 50 children and 20 adults. Conditions at the camp contributed to worsen the problem. A camp official, Emmanuel Kegh, noted that over 300 other IDPs were at risk.
The environmental and health challenges in Bali are similar to what obtains in other IDP camps located in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states affected by the protracted insurgency, which in the past five years has affected over 20 million people in the region. Youth service corps orientation camps, schools and residential houses have been converted to IDP holding centres in the affected states. The Red Cross said that there are about 35,902 IDPs taking refuge in various camps across Taraba State alone. Its Head of Information Umar Waziri said that 24, 300 of this figure were those affected by communal clashes while the remaining 11, 602 of the IDPs were those displaced by the insurgency.
According to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), a total of 221, 283 IDPs are currently camped in Borno State, while the number of IDPs in Gombe was put at 16,000. Officials put the total number of registered IDPs in Adamawa State at 13, 000. No statistics on the number of IDPs in Yobe state are available because there are no designated IDP camps in the state. The Executive Secretary of the Yobe State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) Alhaji Musa Idi Jidawa explained that the state government declined to establish camps IDPs in order not to make them targets of attack by insurgents. Instead, friends and relatives are encouraged to take in IDPs, he added.
As can be imagined, the IDP camps are crammed with people but with poor health facilities installed in them. They are characterised by filthy environment, inadequate food supply and lack of beddings. The IDPs live in unhygienic environment, exposing them to infectious and contagious diseases. Many of them stay in classrooms that have no windows and doors, and sleep on bare floors. Some of the camps are overgrown with bushes that are friendly environment for mosquitoes to breed in and are home to rodents and snakes.
It takes little time and effort to fix such issues.  NEMA and its counterpart agencies in the states where IDP camps exist should strive to improve the sanitary conditions at the refugee centres. Camp premises should be fumigated with herbicides to kill the overgrown grasses. Efforts should equally be made to provide treated mosquito nets to the IDPs, equip camp clinics with appropriate drugs for the treatment of infectious diseases and ensure that the IDPs have access to clean water.
Because NEMA and SEMAs were established to provide only immediate relief to victims of crises, the intervention by these agencies in the states of the North East which is supposed to be temporary has become a burden on their resources because of the prolonged time it is taking the government to bring the causative factors of the crises to an end.  A permanent solution to the challenges faced by the IDPs in various camps would be for government to act to end the insurgency and also restore peace to areas devastated by communal clashes so that all displaced people can return to their homes and begin to live a normal life again.