The Plateau State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, has said 70,000 Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, are currently taking refuge in the state.

The SEMA Director of Administration, Mr. Biser Longnam, said in Jos, yesterday, that the IDPs were from the North-East states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.

Longnam also said some of the displaced persons were from Nasarawa and Taraba states, who left their homes because of communal clashes in their communities.

He said: “We have 70,000 IDPs currently in the state, 36, 000 of them are taking refuge at different locations in Plateau North senatorial district.

“Some of the IDPs are camping in Namu in Quan’Pan Local Government Area and other places in the Southern part of the state.”

Longnam said, however, that the state government could no longer continue to cater for the IDPs in the camps because of dwindling resources.

The director appealed to corporate organisations, philanthropists and others to support the government in catering for the IDPs.

Longnam commended Rotary International, which recently donated some relief materials to IDPs for their show of love.

He said: “It is through humanitarian gestures like this that we will be able to assist the IDPs in the state.

“We appeal to organisations of like minds to assist the IDPs to alleviate their sufferings, while they wait for the return of peace in their areas.”

The director said the state government had been assisting the victims with foodstuffs, toiletries, clothing and drugs to mitigate their sufferings.

Longnam also said the agency had made arrangements with the state Ministry of Education so children in the IDPs camps could be absorbed into schools.