Boko Haram: NEMA Shuts Down Six IDP Camps In Adamawa

By Tom Garba, Yola
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has announced that it has closed down six formal camps in Adamawa.
Mr. Sa’ad Bello, the Adamawa Camps Coordinator of the agency made this known shortly after distributing food and non-food relief materials to Internally Displaced Persons at Malkohi and Yolde Pate host community settlement camps in Yola South Local Government Area of the state.
Bello confirmed that the closure of the camps followed the enormous victory recorded by Nigerian Army in crushing Boko Haram and reclaiming all captured areas in the state.
He said that initially the Agency has 10 designated camps in the state with about 50,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) with over 40,000 separate groups of IDPs living in host communities.
Bello said: “Following the enormous victory recorded by Nigerian Army in defeating Boko Haram and reclaiming all captured areas in Adamawa the camps’ populations have begun to decrease.
“Almost 95 per cent of the Internally Displaced Persons living in 10 designated camps in the state have returned to their respective villages and towns and NEMA found it necessary to closed down six out of ten camps in the state.”
He listed those camps that were shut down as Bekaji, Kwanan Waya, Girei 1 and 2 camps, Federal Polytechnic Mubi ,Yola Campus and EYN Church camps.
According to the coordinator, the remaining four camps sheltering less than 10,000 IDPs include NYSC Orientation camp, Fufore, Malkohi and St Theresa Cathedral camps.
He disclosed that the latest population data analysis showed that there were still about 100,000 IDPs living with host communities in the state.
Bello stated that the agency now focused its humanitarian activities toward returnees’ areas to assists the to recover.
He complained that among the major challenges facing the agency was how to assist and manage those that returned to make their life comfortable.
“Managing the return communities is the biggest challenges now facing the agency due to low resources. The dwindling economy in the country is directly hampering our activities to a large extent,” Bello said.
He also attributed lack of accurate data on the people that returned to their communities among the challenges saying, “Without accurate data of the returnees from seven reclaimed local government areas of the state , we found it difficult to meet the need of the affected communities.”