NEDC closes 90% IDP camps in Borno  

The North East Development Commission said it has closed 90 per cent of the camps for the Internally Displaced Persons spread across Borno State.

The Managing Director, NEDC, Mr. Mohammed Alkali, who disclosed this on Monday in Abuja, added that the commission facilitated the successful return of over 90 per cent of  IDPs to their ancestral homes in the state.

The IDPs’ camps are used as makeshifts for people affected by insurgency in the country. Due to the high rate of terror attacks, several states set up camps to temporarily accommodate the victims.

On Sunday, troops began a search for 101 female IDPs abducted by suspected Boko Haram insurgents in the Gamboru-Ngala and Dikwa local government areas of Borno State.

This was as The According learnt on Wednesday that the insurgents late Tuesday night invaded the newly built resettlement camp for IDPs, setting 30 houses ablaze.

Fielding questions from newsmen, Alkali said that the feat was made possible through collaboration with the state government and other critical stakeholders in the country.

”Two years ago, there were about 52 IDPs camps in Maiduguri alone, but today, we have officially reduced them to five because we have returned most of the IDPs to their ancestral homes.

“With the efforts of the Borno State Government, we are providing the necessary support to encourage them to go back to their ancestral homes.

“We are building houses for the returnees across the North-East zone,” he said

Alkali added, ” In Maiduguri, we built new 500 housing units, specifically on Maffa road for the IDPs and we are replicating the same project in each state of the North-East.

“We are also embarking on empowerment programmes to encourage IDPs to go back to their ancestral homes.

“Most of them left their homes as farmers and fishermen, so we empowered them in those lines,” he stated.

Responding to a question on why most of the intervention programmes were located in Borno State, he said it was because of the level of destruction by insurgents in the state.

He added that the state had a high concentration of victims of insurgency.

”There is what we call a law of proportion in mathematics. 60 per cent of the destructions and victims of insurgency are in Borno State.

”That is why you see that the intervention programme are more in Borno,” he said.

NAN