By: Andrew Aondosoo Labe | aondosoolabe@gmail.com |@WASHStories
DAUDU, NIGERIA – The less
than 3 minutes’ walk to the SEMA IDP Camp II in Daudu, is a mental torture,
especially if you already know where your journey ends – at an
Internally-Displaced Persons (IDP) camp.
Apart from
the shops on both sides of the tarred road with a handful of customers, the
atmosphere around Daudu, a small town, located along Makurdi-Lafia Road, in
Guma Local Government of Benue State foretells an eerie story; a story too much
to bear. For the past half a decade, sorrow has become the landmark of the once
peaceful roadside town.
In a public
primary school along the tarred road, there is a camp for persons
internally-displaced as a result of the perennial herder-farmer crisis in
Nigeria’s North-Central region.
As you enter
the camp, a sea of weary faces greet you under the big tree where some women in
the camp have started a mini-market to complement whatever the Benue State Emergency
Management Agency (SEMA) and other humanitarian organizations offer them.
The camp is
made up of five classroom blocks, broken taps, handwashing stations without
soap and water, and tents branded with the logo of the International
Organization for Migration (IOM) – as live-in shelters for the IDPs. In each
shelter there is a family braving the elements and clinging to hope.
In the
classroom where SEMA officials are using as an office to run the camp, I asked
two of the officials a couple of questions around the general living conditions
of the IDPs and government efforts towards lasting peace between the farmers
and herders. For the latter, they gave no comprehensive explanation as “the
state government promised to hold a peace meeting with the farmers and herders
but no meeting has been held,” one of the officials revealed.
On the
verandah outside the office, Augustine Yamsule, sits with eyes fixed on the
dust raised by a couple of children running around. Seventy-year-old Augustine
arrived Daudu in the early hours of January 2, 2018 – few hours after the coordinated
attacks that left scores of people dead and hundreds severely injured in
farming communities across Benue and Nasarawa states on New Year Day 2018. Augustine
recounted how he trekked from Waku, a village about 100 kilometres away, and
came to Daudu – with his family and a few things they could salvage from the
rampage. He now wishes to return home in peace – “I want to return home even
right now if it was within my power to do so. I am tired of living in an IDP camp
in my fatherland,” he says, after a while, with tears in his eyes.
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Augustine Yamsule, a 70-year-old
man, sits with eyes fixed on the dust raised by a couple of children running
around. Photo: Aondosoo Labe, November 23, 2020
In a report
published in March 2020 by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC)
and verified by the 2019 Global Report on Internal Displacement, it is reported
that out of the more than 41 million people worldwide living in a situation of
internal displacement as at the end of 2018 as a result of conflict and
violence, more than half, or nearly 21 million, were women and girls – with the
figures estimated to be much higher if those displaced by disasters and climate
change were included – with sub-Saharan Africa having the highest number of
internally displaced women and girls, accounting for 8.2 million or 40 per cent
of the global figure.
The situation of IDPs at the Daudu camp and many other camps across the state absolutely corroborates these findings, with an extremely high number of women and girls as compared to males – which further highlights the gender dimensions of internal displacement
Scholastica
Udewua Uhembe, a forty-year-old mother of four, also shares her story. For
Scholastica, living as an IDP has brought added responsibility as she has been
appointed to lead women and girls living in the camp. When asked about
experiences of women and girls in the camp, she responded with teary eyes.
“Life is very difficult for women and girls here,” she said. When probed
further on how women and girls are safely managing menstruation given the
squalid, overcrowded shelters, she responded that it has not been easy for
women and girls but a non-governmental organization came to the camp months ago
and trained them on how to make reusable pads and other menstrual hygiene
practices.
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Scholastica Udewua Uhembe, a
40-year-old mother of four with her hungry child. Photo: Aondosoo Labe,
November 23, 2020
Few minutes into the interview, one of Scholastica’s children runs to her and taps her hand gently crying of hunger. Her husband left her and her children in the camp to stay in a house provided by his sister at Ortese. When asked why she didn’t leave with him, she gave an incoherent answer and moved on.
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| Scholastica Udewua Uhembe. Photo: Luper Aluga, November 23, 2020 |
Down the verandah, a woman sat on the cold verandah, muttering words with intermittent glances heavenward. When I requested her permission for an interview, she agreed with a bland smile. Her name is Blessing Saawuan and she is 40 years old. She comes to the camp daily to sit and watch how life was for her and her five children in the camp until she had to leave the camp. She couldn’t find her camp permit when she returned from one of her numerous travels to reconcile with her husband.
Blessing is
the first wife of her husband. On the night the herders attacked their village,
her husband told her that his only responsibility for the dreadful flight was not
her or her children; but the second wife and her children. “My husband told me
to run with my children to my people,” she said holding back tears.
 |
Blessing Saawuan, a 40-year-old
mother of five comes to the camp daily to sit and watch how life was for her
and her five children in the camp until she lost her camp permit. Photo:
Aondosoo Labe, November 23, 2020.
Blessing further revealed that she was living peacefully with her husband and the second wife in Keana Local Government Area of Nasarawa State, the husband’s homeland, until the crisis altered the course of their lives. According to her, peace has returned to her village in Keana and she wishes to be with her husband and children again. “I have travelled home a couple of times to beg him to allow me return home with the children but he has refused. I am now squatting with a friend close to this IDP camp,” she said. And since she has no source of livelihood and was absent when women and girls were trained on how to make reusable pads, Blessing uses rags to manage her menstruation.
As I wind through the camp, I see hundreds of faces telling a single story – with a shared countenance of hopelessness and irreparable loss.
________________
Andrew
Aondosoo Labe,
a Makurdi-based writer and development journalist, writes for the United Nations Integrated Approach toBuilding Peace in Nigeria’s Herder-Farmer Crisis Project on Shifting the
Narrative through Peacebuilding Initiatives - for youth Multimedia Content
Creators and Online/Traditional Media Practitioners. He blogs at WASH Stories -
https://washstoriesnigeria.blogspot.com/ and can be
contacted via email aondosoolabe@gmail.com or +234 (0) 8099208880.
