Desperate, Famished IDPs Protest In Maiduguri

[caption id="attachment_11186" align="alignnone" width="696"]IDPs in North-East Nigeria[/caption]

In what could potentially be the biggest indictment of the regime of President Muhammadu Buhari just played out in Maiduguri, Borno state, as thousands of desperate, hungry and thirsty Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) took to the streets from their various camps to protest.

Aid agencies have over the weeks sounded the alarm that thousands of IDPs were in the grip of starvation amidst allegations of diversion of relief materials by corrupt federal and state government officials overseeing distribution of these items.

The protest on Thursday saw mostly women and children in major streets and roads protesting against hunger and thirst in their respective camps.

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The Whistler learnt that the aggrieved IDPs barricaded the city’s main entrance, impeding traffic along the Kano-Maiduguri highway.

Despite spirited attempts by security agencies to push them back, the IDPs remained unmoved insisting the authorities give them concrete assurances of what would be done concerning their plight.

One of the IDPs, identified simply as Aisha, said, “We are not fighting but fighting for our survival. The foods are not being supplied, there is no water. No medication for our sick kids; we want food or they should send us back to our villages.

“They don’t allow us to go out to beg. We are kept like prisoners without food.”

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The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), had warned that millions of Nigerians face death by starvation in Northern Nigeria, stressing that hundreds were already dying every day from hunger in a food crisis caused by the seven years of brutal Boko Haram insurgency.

Also, international medical aid agency, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) had raised the alarm that Internally Displaced Persons, (IDPs) are dying in Nigeria in their hundreds, with about 134 dying daily.

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