BENUE State Government on Wednesday called on the Federal Government to ensure the return of displaced persons to their ancestral homes.
The Executive Secretary of the State Emergency Management Agency, Dr Emmanuel Shior, who made the call during the distribution of food items to displaced persons, added that the Federal Government was not showing enough care for the IDPs.
He noted that over 1.5 million people were in the eight designated camps and other camps scattered across the state.
He said their immediate return to their ancestral homes was to avert a situation where some of the vulnerable inmates would be recruited by terrorist groups.
Shior maintained that the humanitarian crisis occasioned by frequent attacks on Benue villages by marauding herders was colossal and devastating.
He expressed disgust that the Federal Government had yet to extend enough palliative to the state as it was done in the North-East region.
He said, “The humanitarian crisis of IDPs is a big burden for the state. We spend hundreds of millions of naira every month to procure food items and other needs.
“Federal Government has not shown enough care and I am not playing politics about this, as we all known, the displaced persons are increasing by the day.
“We have over 1.5 million people in the eight camps the state officially open and several camps are scattered in Naka, Agatu, Gbanjimba and host of others. In Kwande, there are over 2,000 refugees from Cameroon.”
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