New lives, new troubles for displaced persons

Life didn’t stop when a Boko Haram onslaught drove Samson Ayuba out of his village in Bama, Borno State. The 26-year-old student migrated to a camp for internally displaced people (IDP) in Area One, Abuja and married his sweetheart.By September, he’ll have a new baby to feed-and no idea where his next meal will come […]

Life didn’t stop when a Boko Haram onslaught drove Samson Ayuba out of his village in Bama, Borno State. The 26-year-old student migrated to a camp for internally displaced people (IDP) in Area One, Abuja and married his sweetheart.
By September, he’ll have a new baby to feed-and no idea where his next meal will come from.
“We’re are living in difficult situation,” Ayuba says. He has a handful of grains given him by charity organisations providing relief for displaced people, but May rains have disrupted their simple life in tents of rice bags.
“If rain is falling, it is difficult to cook. We haven’t be able to cook anything since yesterday,” he says the morning after heavy shook his humble dwelling.
His young 19-year-old bride has her own problems with her pregnancy. “I feel pain always. At times, I weep. It pains me a lot. Sometimes I even have diarrhoea,” she says.
She’s made a note to inform the doctors at the Police Clinic, Area One, where the group Planned Parenthood Federation of Nigeria (PPFN) foots the bill for antenatal care for some 25 pregnant women across three camps in Abuja.
IDPs are a new addition to Nigeria’s vocabulary. Victims of conflict usually stayed with families until they returned to their homes. But IDPs like Ayuba have no homes to return to. Couples face a harsh reality on IDP camps: bringing new life into already helpless situation.
“We’re trying to enlighten people about the dangers of having too many children that you cannot take care of,” says Dr Jennifer Braimah of PPFN.
“And because of the comfort factor, when violence erupts, husband and wife are trying to comfort each other, natural things will happen, pregnancies will come up, and the women have told us that if they have a place where they can access family planning, they will gladly do it. And that is where we come in.”
That choice came too late for Mohammed Danja. A teacher back in Chinene, Borno, his new family now lives in a tent of bags at Area One. The few belongings they salvaged litter the floor, with little protection from the elements. One clean shirts hangs on a nail.
The attack that chased him out of his Chinene village came two days after his wife gave birth to their baby. The family upped their belongings and trekked into Cameroon, then back over the border until they arrived the camp in Abuja.
“My little boy turned one year on eighth [of May],” Danja says. His wife had taken him to the hospital designated for them by PPFN. “And she is five months pregnant now. You see this great problem we are having.”
“I have never tried anything to prevent [a pregnancy],” he adds.
“Before I understand, the pregnancy had already taken place and no money to provide for it. It is just a mistake that this thing happened. It is a lesson for tomorrow. By the grace of God and it is my prayers it will not happen again.”
Danja’s wife is not alone. An estimated 3,000 displaced people are in similar difficult situations on Abuja camps alone-and the number of displaced climbs to nearly 1.4 million, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, which is getting involved in cases of displaced people-instead of refugees-for the first time in Nigeria.
At least 20 organisations are pitching in to help the displaced-people situation in Abuja alone, says Samuel Bitrus, assistant director of disaster and risk reduction at the National Emergency Management Agency, which coordinates disaster response nationwide.
“This is not a situation where you want to have kids,” says Braimah. “You can barely take care of yourself. You don’t when your next meal is coming. It is beginning to rain. Look at how they live: with tarpaulin and discarded rice bags. So, they do not want to be pregnant in this kind of situation.”
The intervention to help families plan their children and avoid babies they cannot afford started with a displaced pregnant woman from Nasarawa visiting family on the camp in Abuja. She went into labour and lost her baby.
Amina Mohammed was luckier. When she went into labour, the entire community still lived in an uncompleted building that borders the open land they presently inhabit.
The labour turned difficult, but a volunteer “Aunt Habiba” took her to the clinic. The session was paid for. Hours later, she emerged from the theatre with her newborn Aisha at her bosom, she remembers.
Since then, she’s been consistent with getting her baby fully immunized, if it is the last thing she can do.
Jummai Rufus had her baby Ashifa later. Fifty-seven days on, she still remembers the dread of a three-day-long labour. “I was afraid,” she says. Ashifa is her firstborn. Now she’s moved on to focus on breastfeeding the infant, while ensuring she gets all the free vaccine shots available.
“We have been able to offer these services to the women who are willing, to take care of the kids they already have,” says Dr Braimah.  “I’m talking about women who have had 15, 18, nine pregnancies-some dead, some alive, and those that are alive are not well taken care of, because of the situation that they face.”
Without interventions, the situation doesn’t look to change anytime soon. And Ayuba’s luck might not be looking good. “I’m praying to Almighty God to settle this Nigeria, in order to get a job,” Ayuba hopes. A job means he can plan for his baby expected in about three months.
“If I get a baby, I’m supposed to send him to school. I’m supposed to teach him to understand himself, if Nigeria settles.” His last words are a conditionality that remains as unpredictable as his next meal, his baby and his future.