The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said an estimated 17,000 Nigerians, most of them missing after attacks in insurgency-troubled parts of the Northeast and other conflict zones, remain unaccounted for.
The update was released Wednesday, ahead of this year’s observance of the International Day of the Disappeared, an annual event observed August 30.
The latest figure is a drop of around 6,000 from last year, when the ICRC said that 23,659 missing persons were being sought by their families.
The latest figure was given during an event in Yola by the Protection of Family Links Delegate at the ICRC Mubi office, Emeline Montel, who said about 3,000 of the missing persons were from Adamawa State.
The figures were based on cases recorded by the ICRC, which helps families trace missing relatives and reestablish contact when possible, Montel explained.
She was talking to journalists during a public sanitation exercise, street cleaning, remembrance and awareness campaign organized by relatives of missing persons and supported by the ICRC as part of activities leading up to the August 30 International Day of the Disappeared.
Relatives of missing people who participated in the exercise said the community clean-up was also intended to highlight the plight of thousands of families whose lives have been ripped apart by the disappearance of loved ones.
Many of the missing were breadwinners and young people trying to build their lives, they said.
Habiba Mustapha, a member of the Association of Families of Disappeared Persons, who took part in the street cleaning in Yola, said the fate of four of her relatives was still unknown.
Gwoza indigene Habiba, who was displaced from Borno State to Adamawa, said her family had faced prolonged emotional and economic hardship due to the disappearance of her relatives.
“The loss of my relatives remains a continuing source of emotional distress and economic hardship. Some of the missing were breadwinners. Our children are out of school. “Look at me here in an entirely new environment,” she said.