Tales from Taraba Refugee Camp ‘We have no food, no clothing’

“We ran and left our husbands behind. Seven days have passed now but we have not heard from them. We don’t know if they are still alive or they have been killed,” Monica John, a young woman clasping a malnourished infant in her bosom, said. Now they may be safe from the poisonous arrows and […]

“We ran and left our husbands behind. Seven days have passed now but we have not heard from them. We don’t know if they are still alive or they have been killed,” Monica John, a young woman clasping a malnourished infant in her bosom, said.

Now they may be safe from the poisonous arrows and sharp machetes that have pierced and hacked down some of their kinsmen to death, they still have to grapple with a lot of other problems.

“We have no food and no clothing. We do not even have blankets to cover our children who sleep on the bare floor. For some of us, sleep has eluded us since we came. We just sit and watch over our children because we are afraid we may lose them. We wonder all night if they will survive the biting cold at night and the gnawing hunger in the day time,” Martha Benedict, a middle aged woman with her nine children at the camp, said.

Screams of children and the agonizing faces of their mothers painted a gloomy picture, at least, in contrast to the ember sun sinking behind the hills and the cheerful parrots and finches chirruping as they go to roost on the green branches of trees. The starved children were crying for food and their sad mothers were agonizing about where to get food for them. It was time for dinner and if they were at home in their villages they would have stoked fires and prepared dinner for their families. The present situation is grim with no piece of yam to munch, no crumb of bread to chew and no morsel of tuwo to swallow. Not even a plate of miyan kuka lick and wet their parched lips. But the future looks bleaker. Their homes have been razed down and they have nowhere to go to. Their granaries too have been burnt and if ever they go back, they will have nothing to eat.

Worste still, the agony of waiting for an angel that will bring manna is disheartening. “We wake up and just pray that some kind hearted men will bring succor to us but we have been waiting for days now and nothing appears to be coming. Since we came on Monday, we were rationed slices of bread once, and then kunu. We are calling on government to come to our aid,” emaciated Mrs John said.

But elections have come and gone and politicians are no longer interested in giving humanitarian services. They have won elections and are now enjoying the pickings of their offices and would not want to bother themselves with shabby looking refugees.

All around the camps—Jolly Nyame Stadium, Lankaviri, Yorro, Lau—children are crying of hunger and their helpless mothers are despairing but the relief process is slow. Government bureaucracy knows no emergency and if the incapacitated State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) is not reactivated to respond promptly to the problem then Taraba will yet face a terrible humanitarian crisis.

SEMA’s warehouses are empty and it has received just about N200,000 as running cost in the past year. Four days after the refugees left the ruins of what used to be their houses for Jalingo, they are yet to receive succor. The Director of SEMA, Alhaji Adamu Sani, has been suspended. The Deputy Governor, Alhaji Sani Abubakar Danladi, who is the Chairman of the Governing Board of SEMA, was absent at the security meeting held in his office on Thursday and it will take the Grace of God for response to the crisis to be prompt and meaningful.

Other state and local government officials just had a security meeting on Thursday aimed at addressing the issue of refugees but only N5 million was earmarked for buying relief materials, according to Jalingo Local Government Chairman, Hon. Hassan Bappa.  Sadly too, the officials to do not know the exact number of the refugees dumped at camps across northern Taraba. No statistics have been taken and how the N5 million will get food and clothing for the over two thousand refugees remains to be imagined.

Back at their villages, the atmosphere is tense and situation is grim, but some refugees are beginning to go back to the ruins of their homes. “It is better to come back and die from the arrows and gunshots of my enemies than to die of hunger in Jalingo,” Mrs Joy Samuel, just returning from Jalingo to Minda with her three little children said.

The village of Minda looked quiet but tensed. Police camped at what looked like a market square and behind them were skeletons of burnt down houses. Goats and sheep lowed and bleated sorrowfully as they graze around the deserted compounds.

In some compounds that were not torched, few men and old women huddled around  sheds with bows and arrows by their sides gazing about furtively to spot enemies coming for attack, and perhaps, to see their children and wives who got missing since the crisis broke out last Sunday walk into their arms.

“All our little children have lost. We don’t know if they were killed or they are lost in the bush. Other women here have lost their husbands and some men here have not seen their wives since last Sunday. We are appealing to government to help us look for our people,” one of the village elders in Minda who would not want to be named said.

But the police who are drafted to keep the peace at Minda are more interested in feasting on the strayed goats and chickens than restoring confidence in villagers. When our correspondent went to Minda on Thursday morning, the police were doing a barbecue at their camp while the villagers sat at their few standing compounds with their bows and arrows ready to protect themselves.

However, Inspector Ray Baguri, the Officer in Charge of the detachment at Minda explained that it was the villagers who gaave them the goats and chicken.

Baguri declined the request by our correspondent to be taken to the disputed piece of land that sparked the fight, saying it was unsafe as the warring tribes are still harbouring hatred against each other. “Anything can happen, so I don’t want us to take any risks,” the inspector warned.

An official statement from government said the violence erupted when one Mrs Monica Hunga went to pluck Kuka leaves on the disputed piece of land in Kaudad. Details were not given and whether she is dead or still alive, it cannot be ascertained.