Suspension of registration of displaced persons by the International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC, and not lack of food was responsible for the protest by some Internally Displaced Persons, IDP, in Maiduguri, Borno State on Tuesday.
This is the declaration by the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA.
The IDPs on Tuesday, in their hundreds, staged a protest blocking Maiduguri-Kano Road and vandalizing the bill boards on the road.
They IDPs who were displaced as a result of Boko Haram’s attack on Baga and other communities in Kukawa local government area of Borno were reported to have carried out the protest complaining of hunger in the camp.
But in a statement by its Head of Media and Public Relations, Mr. Sani Datti, NEMA said that the reason for the protest was different from what was alleged.
Said Datti: “For record and purpose of clarity, though there was protest by some IDPs living in Teachers Village Camp, Maiduguri, it was never caused by hunger or lack of food supplies.
“The protest was actually caused by interruption of profiling exercise of the IDPs by International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC), who were at the camp to extend their humanitarian support to complement the effort of partners.
“Consequently, some people outside made attempt to be enumerated and this prompted some IDPs in the camp to chase them away and it resulted in commotion and riot.”
Stressing that the situation had been put under control with the intervention of security agencies, Datti said NEMA had continued to provide food items for people in the camps, including host communities and areas liberated in Borno and Adamawa State.
He said the food distributed in the camp on January 15, 2019, was expected to last the households for one month.
