COVID-19 in the time of despair: How Nigeria’s IDP’s are struggling to navigate a global pandemic

Water, an expensive and scarce commodity­

“Where have we seen taps with running water for us to wash our hands under for 20 seconds to prevent COVID-19? It is just not possible to do such,” said a despairing Hannatu Bishara.

The mother of two who is originally from Nigeria’s northeast state, Adamawa is an internally displaced person (IDP) at the Gongola IDP camp in Abuja. She has lived there for about five years as a result of the Boko Haram insurgency.

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“It is not easy for us to wash our hands for 20 or even 10 seconds,” Bishara said.  “Sometimes it is when we are about to eat that we wash our hands because it is not easy for us to get the water [otherwise]. Water is scarce and it is expensive. We don’t even have the taps with running water to wash our hands. Sometimes we fetch water in a bowl and wash our hands inside the bowl.”

Scoffing as she went about doing her laundry, she added, “When I heard the [COVID-19] guidelines and that hand washing was a mandatory part, I thought it was ridiculous. Now I can laugh about it, but it wasn’t funny when I first heard it.”

Looking at the two bowls of water which Hannatu was using, it was at first, difficult to tell in which of them she did the initial washing and in which one she rinsed out the cloths before drying them. The water in both bowls looked absolutely the same. Maybe the rinsing water was half a shade less brown and less foamy, upon a second look.

Recognising the effect of the pandemic on IDP camps – and seeing limited assistance from the Nigerian government – churches, NGOs and organisations like the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) have stepped in and expanded their water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) operations to curb the spread.

Many women at the Gongola IDP fled the Boko Haram attacks from different communities in Adamawa State and were already in very desperate situations, lacking basic healthcare access and proper housing among other difficulties. In addition to contending with the stigma and impoverishment caused by the insurgency, it is almost as if they are being further strained by the COVID-19 guidelines to regularly wash their hands, a government that is showing insufficient care to their plight unsupportive husbands in some cases, and NGOs that have promised to deliver where government failed, but have also themselves failed to do so.

Together, these forces make their situation so desperate that they put their health and that of their family at risk in a bid to get water.

The Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), made a $6.22million donation to the IOM to enable it to implement activities in camps and camp-like settings and among host communities.  This is to be implemented over a twelve-month period.

In July 2020, Franz Celestin, the IOM Nigeria Chief of Mission, said that it was the “largest WASH donation since the programme began in Nigeria in 2018, and it arrives at a time when these services are most needed,” for IDPs in Borno State in northeast Nigeria – the epicentre of the Boko Haram insurgency.

In the wake of the pandemic the IOM came up with an 11-month ‘COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and response Plan’ from February to December 2020. The plan, with a total budget of $19.3million, outlined the major intervention areas the IOM would cover in its support to Nigeria regarding the pandemic. Some of such areas were [IDP] Camp management and camp coordination ($4,521,216). This included WASH facilities and had the second highest budget after the line item, ‘Addressing socio-economic impacts of the crisis’ ($4,568,584).

A report on the organisation’s website said this donation followed the launch of its COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan with a request of USD 19.3 million made to all potential donors to mitigate the pandemic’s socio-economic impacts and ensure the continuity of life-saving assistance in emergency settings.

But even with these donations, IDPs like those in Gongola camp, still struggle to acquire enough water to satisfy their basic hygiene, cooking and laundry needs – let alone to take extra pandemic-related precautionary measures.

They do not have taps with running water in their community and depend on a privately sunk borehole from where they buy water.

“I don’t think even my children would have known what running tap water looks like if not for the borehole water tank we have,” Hannatu muttered as she bent back down to continue her laundry.

Abiding by rules made in Geneva

Mary Ayuba is another IDP at Gongola camp who arrived in 2015 after the insurgents destroyed her farm produce and home in Madagali, Adamawa State. For her, fetching water now is for the moment’s use. Unlike her usual practice of saving some in storage, even with COVID-19 demands, she cannot afford this ‘luxury.’

She was a farmer in Madagali and planted beans, corn and rice. “The insurgents made me kneel down and watch them burn down my house, 20 bags of corn, 10 bags of rice and five bags of beans that I had in storage at home,” SHE SAID. “Each bag was 55kg. The corn I would have sold at N20, 000 each, the rice at N7, 000 each and the beans at N17, 000 or N18, 000. I would have made N555, 000 at the worst. I made a lot of money from my farming and it was from the proceeds that I built my three-bedroom house which was burnt down.

“I work as a cleaner, but even that is shaky.”

Ayuba, like many in Gongola camp, cannot abide by the recommended COVID-19 water measures – measures that the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) have adopted and disseminated across the country.

The original guidelines, on which the NCDC created theirs, were drafted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva, one of Europe’s wealthiest cities. But the unique challenges people in low-income countries face in abiding by these guidelines raise the question for some of how much the authors considered their circumstances.

“Honestly, we don’t follow this guideline always because of the scarcity of water in this community,” Ayuba said. The 200-litre drum, which houses her water supply, was turned upside down.  “During the rainy season, we fill it with N200 while in the dry season, it is N450. And when it is filled, it lasts for three days with me washing clothes, plates cooking and drinking.

“As you can see, my drum is empty because I don’t have enough money to fill it with water. When I get little money, like N20 or N40, I buy the one that will be enough for drinking and cooking at the moment,” she added.

As she spoke, her sister came out with a bowl of dirty kitchenware, including a pot lined with burnt food, plates, spoons, cups and cutlery. Showing some dexterity at managing water, she deftly used no more than 1.5 litres to wash and rinse everything.

It costs the women N20 to buy 10 litres of water. However, pre-COVID, they would have paid N5 or N10 for the same quantity of water. Now supplies are more limited – and carry a higher price tag.

Normally, the women fund their water purchases from the sale of cashews, which they have picked along with their children and sold to merchants who come to their camps to buy. They sell a mudu (approximately 1.3kg) for N300 when it is in season and for between N400 and N500 when it is out if season and the trees are bare. From the women’s analysis, when in season, one day’s harvest could take care of their water needs for up to a week, sometimes more.

Ayuba explained that her ability to fund her family’s water needs is seasonal. “COVID-19 has blocked all avenues to make money now that cashew season is gone. I cannot do the domestic work I used to, to make money in the off-season [of cashew], she said.

Government’s palliative ‘bonanza’ 

At different times during the lockdown, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs distributed relief items to IDPs across the FCT. This included rice, beans, vegetable oil, even duvets.

But the residents of Gongola camp have not been on the receiving end of this ‘largesse.’  Even more problematic: water was not even a part of the relief shared with most IDPs, and does not seem to be a priority for the government.

The Refugees Commission visited the camp in the early days of the pandemic to distribute relief items including foodstuffs, facemasks and sanitizers. The camp chairman, Joseph Jauro said, “we had enough and even gave some to our neighbours.”

However, when they [the Refugees Commission] came a second time on December 17, “the hajia who came refused to use our camp household list. She was looking at faces to distribute the items. In the end, we IDPs barely got anything because the whole process erupted in chaos. Those who were lucky got the 1kg rice bag and that was it.”

The FCT Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is directly responsible for IDPs in Gongola camp. The women said they are aware that an officer from the organisation has been assigned to them, but Ayuba said they have not seen “her during the pandemic at all.”

Linda, the spokesperson of the FCT Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), was contacted by the reporter regarding the claims by the IDPs. She said only the FEMA director general could respond to queries from journalists. Questions bordering on FEMA’s support to Abuja IDPs to enable them cope with the pandemic and also respect the guidelines, were sent to her, for the DG. The questions were not responded to.

The reporter also spoke to Nneka Ikem Anibeze, Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to Hon Sadiya Umar Farouq, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs on what what support IDPs in Abuja received from the Ministry. She asked that questions be sent to her via whatsapp and that she would get someone to respond to them. As at press time, no response had been received to the four questions sent and she also did not pick the reporter’s call after that.

“IDPs are often neglected, stigmatized, and already face difficulties in access to basic services,” Said Moradeke Abiodun-Badru, the project coordinator for English-Speaking West Africa Public Service International. “With the COVID-19 outbreak, their situation is further worsened as they struggle to survive the impact of the conflict and the contagion at the same time.”

Saratu Adamu, 28, another IDP in Gongola camp, is living that struggle. She pays N300 to fill her beer barrel-size drum with water daily for domestic use. This is a basic need she said she struggled to meet in ordinary times, let alone now that the pandemic has ravaged income sources.

Most of what Adamu knows of the virus and the accompanying guidelines were from reported speeches by neighbours who heard them over the radio.

“We heard that we should maintain proper hygiene and take care of our children,” said Saratu, who has five sons.  “Ensure they don’t go out and mingle

strangers. They told us that there is a new disease in town called coronavirus. We should ensure we wash hands properly with soap under running water in case you don’t have hand sanitizer.”

Although this information is accurate, her present situation prevents her from abiding by some of the most significant yet basic of the rules.

Like Bishara and Ayuba, her family reserves handwashing for when they want to eat, because they do not have the financial means to do so more than that. When it gets really bad, she said, “we usually go beg for water from some of the ‘well-to-do people’ around us and they give.”

An abridged cashew season has exacerbated the problem. Normally running from February to June, this year all three women said that by April there was barely anything left on the trees for them or their children to harvest for sale.

They have therefore turned to selling firewood, a more herculean but necessary task, if they are even to have water to cook with and to drink.

These women’s husbands previously supported their family’s needs, but with the men all out of work, it is mission impossible. While Ayuba says her husband told her he is traveling to Enugu in Nigeria’s east to look for work, she quips that, “I have a husband, but it is all on my head.”

And even if their husbands were working, in Nigeria, the responsibility for collecting the family’s water falls most often to women and girls. According to the United Nations, “they are responsible for water collection in 8 out of 10 households with water off premises.”

With no cashew to pick and water fetching now mostly left to their mothers, children can be seen playing ‘carry me’ with the wheelbarrows they once used to transport jerricans and buckets of water from the borehole to their homes.

Finding water at all cost

Many women in the IDP camp have resorted to a nearby stream to cut down on the water purchasing expense.

For a heavily pregnant Asmau Yusuf, 30, being in her third trimester does not stop her from making the almost 50-minute walk to and from the stream to fetch water for her family. She goes there when she needs water for laundry, cleaning and bathing.

Women in the community, like Adamu, accompany her to the stream and back to make the experience less tortuous, she says.

Still, her pregnancy has slowed the number of trips she makes to the stream. At this late stage of her pregnancy, she has reduced her trips to three a day. However, on days when her two sons have played outside or she needs to do laundry, Yusuf says she can make the trip up to five times.

In the first two hours that our reporter was in the community, Yusuf made multiple trips to the borehole to fetch water. She was refilling a black beer-size barrel drum in her house from which her family drank and she used for cooking. As she settled down to speak with our reporter, her husband walked into the compound and asked her for a cup.

She pointed it to him. He filled it with water from the drum, drank it halfway and threw the rest to the ground. She gave him a scornful look, struggling to restrain herself from saying anything to her husband as he walked out of the compound.

Shortly after, she heard the sound of her sons’ laughter as they both came in for a drink. It was perfect timing for her to unleash her anger after their father’s action. They scurried away after a few quick gulps.

The pink bucket in the corner of her compound – the one famous in Nigeria for storing water – now houses grains. “It is not for water anymore,” she said. “Water is too expensive. I put my food inside now.”

Asmau was delivered of a baby girl on December 14. With an additional human being to care for, her worries have intensified. “See my baby, and this corona is coming back. I will fetch more water and I don’t have money. This suffering is not ending.”

When water is friend and foe

The women are aware of the risks they are exposed to using water from the stream, but feel helpless to do otherwise.

“The stream water is not hygienic,” Ayuba said. “It [can] cause typhoid and malaria, but we don’t have a choice. We still fetch from it and drink.”

More so, it is the only destination for children in the community to swim in and explore other forms of recreation.

However, the journey to and from the stream is taking a toll on her health. “Nowadays I get body pain and weakness because of the distance of the stream. Lifting the basin of water and carrying it through that distance is not easy at all. We, the people of Margi, are not used to fetching water with a basin. But here we are forced to do it and it is causing a lot of harm to our health,” Ayuba said.

Churches and NGOs step into government’s shoes

Just as the IOM has had to step in for IDPs in Borno, NGOs and churches have arrived to provide supplies for those in the Gongola camp.

Grace Osofodunrin is the coordinator of the Justice, Development and Peace Commission (JDPC) of the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja. She explained that once the pandemic set in, the Archdiocese set about identifying IDP communities as well as vulnerable families in the FCT.

“The office of the Archbishop, Most Rev Ignatius Kaigama, mobilised food to distribute across the over 60 parishes in the diocese and the vulnerable households around them who would typically come to the church to collect their share regardless whether they are Catholics, Christian or not,” she said.

Running concurrently at this time was the distribution of relief items by the JDPC to IDPs in Yimitu, a less known and harder to reach camp. Residents of Kuchigoro, another camp, also benefited from the distribution by Monsignor Inang Ewang of the diocese. Another round of 500 IDPs and vulnerable households in Ushafa, Lugbe, Kubwa, Kpaduma, Jikwoyi, Tunga Maje and Gwagwalada received palliatives provided by Irish Aid.

Two hundred IDPs and vulnerable households in the Gidan Mangoro, Idu Karimo and Sabo Lugbe axis of the FCT also benefited from palliatives provided by the Catholic Agency for Foreign Development through the Caritas Foundation, and the organisation is planning a second phase of distribution in the coming weeks.

It was not any different for IDPs in Keana, next door in Nasarawa. They received support from the NGO, PAGED Initiative, who took food items to them.

Ummi Bukar Project Coordinator of the organisation said it was important for them to support government’s efforts especially, where it concerned women who usually bear the brunt of such hardships.

While Ayuba appreciated the NGOs initial visit and education, she has yet to see them return with the food they promised to bring:

“The moment the coronavirus became very serious, some NGOs came and enlightened us about the dangers of the virus. They taught us some safety measures like physical distancing, handwashing under running water, and environmental sanitation. They also gave us some materials like hand sanitizers and face masks. They did this from house to house because we did not go out of our homes… The NGOs promised to come back with food items. We have not seen them ever since.”

And even with all the support from the Catholic Church and NGOs, water still remains an unmet need for the IDPs.

 Which way forward?

The Public Service International organised a webinar to commemorate the World Refugee Day on June 20. It featured experts from the International red Cross, National Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and IDPs (NCFRMI) and the German Development Agency, among others.

They called for an urgent need to address the IDPs plight in Nigeria – bringing both a human rights and public health approach to address the potential for high infection rates in the camps.

They said, “IDPs are vulnerable to COVID-19 because of the health risks associated with movement, displacement, overcrowding, increased exposure due to substandard shelter and poor nutritional and health status. There is need for government to recognize the rights, roles, and responsibilities of health workers, including key considerations for their occupational safety and health.”

Experts argued that the Nigerian government should include IDPs in its COVID-19 strategy and planning, ensuring proper protections are provided to health workers and making available adequate supplies of PPEs (masks, gloves, goggles, gowns, hand sanitizer, soap and water, cleaning supplies) in the camps’ healthcare facilities.

The UN’S Sustainable Development Goal 6 focuses on clean water and sanitation. It targets “universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all” and “access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations,” by 2030.

But Bishara, Ayuba, Yusuf and Adamu, however, do not see this goal being achieved anytime soon – particularly given the government’s penchant for failed promises like with banning public officers from going abroad for treatment and ensuring 24-hour power supply. Maybe, they say, their children will fare better, but, in this moment, the outlook is far from rosy.

With the dry season and harmattan starting rather early this year, the women hope that the intensity of the temperature – which can rise as high as 37°C on some days – will keep COVID-19 away. “If not, if it dares come here, we are finished, because we don’t have [enough] water,” Bishara said, as the others nodded in agreement.