Hunger, other challenges dashing hopes of Borno IDPs in Bauchi

Women and children in their numbers gathered under the shade of a tree, listening to Red Cross officials who are the regular visitors to the place since their arrival from Borno State 14 months ago. The large Acacia tree serves as a rendezvous for the women to discuss their situation and unknown future, amidst challenges, […]

Women and children in their numbers gathered under the shade of a tree, listening to Red Cross officials who are the regular visitors to the place since their arrival from Borno State 14 months ago.

The large Acacia tree serves as a rendezvous for the women to discuss their situation and unknown future, amidst challenges, with their eyes on the road as their new found abode is being besieged by inquisitive visitors who always bring hopeless hope.

While the women and children sit under the tree, the men gather in what appears to be the largest thatched hut, where the Bulama receives the visitors and holds court.

Recalling with nostalgia, Bulama Gujja, the Bulama or leader of the IDPs community in Bauchi, painted a picture of the pathetic situation of people losing hope in the face of challenges threatening their existence.

The community, an Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) settlement, was recently in the news when it was reported that children, as well as adults, were allegedly eating onion leaves to survive because of the hunger ravaging the isolated community as a result of food shortage.

According to the community leader, 206 people left various camps in Borno State where they’ve lived for three years to settle in Bauchi State, hoping to recover from the trauma of loss they suffered in the hands of Boko Haram.

“Majority of us are from Mafa, Jere and Marte local government areas. All of us here had one or two persons killed by Boko Haram. We left our towns and villages and settled in camps in Maiduguri.

“We are farmers and pastoralists; we lost our possessions, farmlands and animals. We decided to leave the camps and find a place where we can farm and rear animals to rebuild our lives.

“We solicited for a place to live and were given this place by Hajiya Maryam Abacha. We’ve been here for 14 months now, but the challenges we are facing is giving us cause for concern,” he said.

According to the community leader, when they arrived at the community, they met the village Head of Runde-Bin who was informed prior to their coming.

“The farm manager, Hafizu, introduced us to the community leader who later took us to other traditional rulers which include the ward head and others.

“We camped at the primary school for some days before we were brought here when school resumed and the pupils had to use their classes.

“We set up thatched rooms to accommodate us and our families and settled to farm for what to eat. Our first challenge was the difference in soil type. In our place, the soil is rich, so we don’t need fertiliser or herbicides to grow crops like maize, sorghum and millet.

“Here, the soil needs a lot of fertiliser, herbicides and other inputs and we don’t have the money to buy them. So, we had very poor harvest which only sustained us for a few months,” he added.

Shuwa-Shuwa lacks everything

Shuwa-Shuwa, as the IDPs settlement is referred to around the surrounding communities, is known to lack everything. Food is in extremely short supply, leading to malnutrition among children.

Our reporter saw a mother holding a small child. With a smile on her face, she narrated how she was helped to access a centre for malnourished children and her child was placed on a highly nutritious meal which led to his recovery.

“My child was highly malnourished and emaciated before, but now he has recovered. He is over two years old but he couldn’t walk at the time. I was referred to a place where he was treated and given a packaged nutritious meal. He is now strong and can walk,” she said.

The story is the same for mothers with little children in the camp as lack of food takes its toll on the children, compounding an already dire situation.

Hauwa Jidda Usman, a 40-year-old mother of one, said they hardly eat twice a day at the camp.

“We eat only once in a day because we can’t afford it. We manage the little we get from our husbands who gather wood and sell to make money. Even the single meal we eat is not regular. Sometimes, we go into the bush and gather some edible leaves, cook and mix with powdered groundnut cake and eat.

“It is true that our children ate onion leaves but, to be honest, it is not a regular occurrence. It was an isolated incidence. On that day, the children were very hungry and onions were brought for sale here. So, they picked the leaves and began to eat. You know how children behave; if they are well fed, even if it’s meat, they won’t bother but if they are hungry, they can eat anything,” she said.

The only source of water for the IDPs is a hole dug on the bed of a dried stream close to their settlement.

The water, which is not so clean, has been a source of diarrhoea and other diseases among the children.

With no health facility nearby, they have to take their sick to Inkil, about five kilometres from the camp.

“We have to either take motorcycle or trek to Inkil. We don’t have drugs or a hospital in any of the four communities close to us,” one of the female IDPs said.

Despite regular visits by various organisations like the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Red Cross, WHO, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) and others, no assistance has been given to the IDPs since their arrival.

This was corroborated by the state Auditor of IDPs living in Bauchi State, Mohammed Mustapha, who was at the camp to discuss some issues with the people.

Mustapha, who came to Bauchi six years ago after their displacement from Bama, said that the situation in the camp is pathetic as the people live without any assistance.

“Government and other agencies are all aware of their stay, but no one is interested in helping them. These are people who despite being indigenes of Borno State chose to live here, but they were neglected.

“We now have some hope because the Presidential Committee on North East Initiative (PCNI) has shown great commitment to help them. They have identified 73 households and soon, temporary shelters of wood and corrugated iron would be built for them to replace the thatched huts,” he said.

Number increasing

According to the Bulama, the number of people has increased from a little over 200 to over 300 in the last one year as other family members left behind have joined their relatives at the camp.

“We are now about 368 or so in this camp which is almost double the initial number. That is why our situation is getting worse. We don’t have anything, we lost everything. Some of us came here with only our clothes.

“We thank Allah for having some generous neighbours who help from time to time despite having little. We don’t like begging for anything, we want to rebuild our lives. As you can see, we are now rearing chickens and goats which we managed to acquire. We want to rebuild our lives from the scratch and live a good life.

“We want our children to have good education. They were attending schools at the camp in Maiduguri where we stayed for three years, but they don’t attend school here, they are only taught Qur’anic lessons by some of our youths who are versed in Qur’anic education,” he added.

When the news of their predicament and the Onion leaves eating incidence came to light, the state government denied the story.

The State Emergence Management Agency (SEMA) Director, Relief and Rehabilitation, Kabiru Yusuf Kobi, while addressing journalists in Bauchi, said the state hasn’t had a single IDP Camp since the beginning of the Boko Haram insurgency.

According to him, the IDPs live among the people in the host communities and share facilities like hospitals, schools and other things.

Kobi noted that the IDPs were always enumerated and identified by relevant agencies like NEMA, PCNI and international organisations like Red Cross, International Organisation for Migration and others.

On the Runde-Bin IDPs community, the SEMA official said the community was set up in 2018 when some IDPs living in camps in Maiduguri came down to Bauchi to settle and farm.

He said the people, who were a little over 200 in number, were given the land on request by Hajiya Maryam Abacha and they presented the paper to the Emir’s Palace and were allowed to settle after all necessary steps were taken.

“After settling down, they began to farm to get what to eat.”

He therefore called it mischief for anybody to report that the people now eat Onion leaves to survive.

The reality is that the people living at Runde-Bin IDPs settlement are living in an inhuman condition and need assistance.

While the world ignore them in their struggle to survive, they suffer in silence with little or nothing to make their lives better after suffering displacement, killings and other challenges for years.