*Eyewitness account

By Edeh Chinenye

WE arrived the Internally Displaced Persons, IDP, camp in Yola on Friday, May 21, 2015 at the beginning of a 3-day visit spearheaded by the Foundation for African Cultural Heritage, FACH.

I was on the entourage as a representative of the Doctors Health Initiative, DHI. Others that were also part of the team were from the Uduimo Itsueli Foundation and Fertility Care Centres of Africa.

The visit was targeted at IDPs from Sambisa Forest especially the pregnant women who were said to have been placed at Malgwi Camp, Yola.
We got there only to find out that they had been moved withing the week, to an undisclosed place in Abuja by the Presidency.
So we visited two other Camps: Maikwi and NYSC major Camp all in Yola, Adamawa State. These Camps had IDPs from different localities in Adamawa State.

The IDPs in the first camp are from Michika Local Government, Adamawa. They are predominantly farmers.

On interaction with them, they related how they were invaded on the 6th of September, 2014 around 10:30 am by the Boko Haram group whose target initially was to kill all the males in the community, but many escaped through a nearby mountain and from there escaped to relatives and to the Gibson Jalo Military Camp near the IDPs Camp for security.

They recalled how the insurgents abducted some of their young girls while the women ran away with their children, and on learning that their husbands were at Maikwi Camp, joined them there.

They told sad stories about how their houses were burnt down, their seedlings destroyed and their villages left desolate.
We observed there were functional mobile clinics at the camps and quite a number of the IDPs were relatively healthy looking. However, they complained of tasteless food. They were about 300 in number including women and children. Some of the little children looked malnourished.
International bodies including UNICEF and UNFPA as well as national bodies such as the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, and state bodies like the Adamawa State Emergency Management Agency, ADSEMA, were present.

In my opinion, UNFPA might have been involved in the relocation of the pregnant women as ordered by the Presidency.

Requests to go back home

Quite a number of the persons I spoke to indicated that they wanted to go back home and also complained of being urgently short of money.
They said their need was about N2,000 ($10) for transportation and maybe a little extra cash for seedlings. There were complaints of being treated like prisoners in the Camp.

It was gathered that about 75 percent of them that were lucky to obtain some funds, had gone back home, even though government officials said the villages are not yet safe.

FACH went along to the camp with bags of rice, beans, flour and gallons of cooking oil. There were doubts whether the donated items would be distributed judiciously.

Other persons I spoke to lamented that their children are not going to school, but were being instructed by volunteers among the IDPs themselves, even though they are not trained teachers.

The orphans and those unable to locate their families are apparently, suffering psychologically. They asked us for toys and biscuits, in the belief that we were relatives on a visit. One particular woman urged me to take her son along with me when I was ready to leave.
On the second day, Saturday 23rd May, 2015, we visited the NYSC Camp located at Damari in Gira Local Government, Yola. It is the largest Camp for the IDPs. The population of refugees is at least 5,000, including women and children.
The people there are from different Local Governments uch as Michika, Magana etc. The official who received us, said the Boko Haram re-visited Magana last week and abducted dozens of women, and that is why they are saying the places are not safe, because security has not been fully restored.

There were many orphans and widows in the Camp.
One of the pregnant women gave birth the day we visited. A few of the widows recounted that their husbands were killed by Boko Haram in August while others were killed on 8th of September, 2014.

We interviewed them and discovered many have no clear plans for the future; some want to trade in provision s or as store keepers.

The orphans were asked if they will like to go to rehabilitation centres in Abuja, Lagos or other states, many said indicated interest while a few said no.

They said they needed to go to school while the widows desire to be sponsored to start a trade or acquire skills.

During a medical outreach in both Camps, drugs provided by FACH were distributed free of charge. At the 2nd Camp, we presented relief materials consisting clothes, food items, tissue paper, slippers, and some household items

Interestingly, when these items were being presented and taken into the store, the IDPs expressed cynicism as to whether they would be given to them on the long run. They taunted the officials repeatedly, but praised the Catholic Bishop of Adamawa for his generosity and concern.