….we’re overstretched, overwhelmed by humanitarian crisis – SEMA

By Peter Duru, Makurdi

At least 29,743 aged persons of 60 years and above have been reportedly displaced as a result of the ceaseless armed herdsmen attacks on communities in Benue state.

The victims who are currently taking refuge in Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, camps and host communities scattered across the state are said to be living in worrisome conditions and in dire need of assistance.

According to a last cumulative data of the IDPs for the year 2018 up to September 2021 obtained from the Benue State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, the aged IDPs are currently located in 11 Local Government Areas, LGAs, of the state.

Vanguard gathered Wednesday in Makurdi that the figures could be up by over 50 percent given the spate of attacks recorded in several communities of the state in the last nine months.

According to the data, the aged IDPs who were sacked from their ancestral homes by armed herders are currently taking refuge in camps and host communities in Makurdi, Guma, Logo, Gwer West, Agatu, Kwande, Ukum, Ado and Katsina-Ala LGAs of the state, while those of Konshisha and Oju LGAs were displaced as a result the military operation that followed the killing of military personnel in the area by criminal elements in the feud between communities in the two LGAs.

Speaking on the IDPs situation in the state, the Executive Secretary of Benue SEMA, Dr. Emmanuel Shior lamented that the state government had been overstretched by the burden.

Dr. Shior pointed out that the state government was spending hundreds of millions of Naira monthly to support the IDPs lamenting that the resources of the government were being overstretched without the necessary support from the federal government.

He said: “The Federal Government is indifferent to situation in Benue and the state government has been left with the burden of the humanitarian crisis which is obviously not right and unacceptable because this people were displaced as a result of herdsmen attacks and they deserve to be treated better and given proper attention by the Federal Government as being done to the humanitarian crisis in the North East.”