Hundreds of buildings. They used to be shelters for people fleeing the violence in their home communities. They are now shells of memories and, without urgent action, risk becoming even more wretched.
The Dalori II displacement camp echoed with life only last year. Traders lined the dirt roads with groceries, firewood, and clothing accessories. Young men played football on the field adjacent to the school painted in pale blue. Women sat by the shelters to embroider caps as they watched over their babies. If there was no vehicle to chase after, the children delighted in dragging polythene kites either through the soil behind them or the sky above.
This vast camp, located on the outskirts of Maiduguri in northeastern Nigeria, now lies barren. The only sign of life resides in the security personnel manning the gates to prevent those petty traders, those athletic men, those enterprising women, and those young kite fliers from making their way back in.
The gates used to be flung open as people entered and exited freely. Today, even though parts of them have been torn away from their joints by the forces of nature, the iron sheets still lay precariously in the way as barricades to prevent unauthorised access.
The government of Borno state insists the days of providing camps for people displaced by the years-long Boko Haram insurgency are over. So, a few years ago, it started shutting them down, starting with those in and around the capital city of Maiduguri. This is despite the observation from non-governmental organisations that the decision has pushed hundreds of thousands of people into “deeper suffering and destitution”.
According to the governor, Babagana Zulum, the camps have become fertile ground for prostitution, procreation, and drug abuse. He has also said that closing them will encourage the IDPs to “earn their means of livelihood by themselves”.
“The governor told us they were going to dismantle the camp, that we should return to our communities,” recalled Bukar Ali, 57, who used to live in the Dalori II displacement camp. “He said people would become lazy if they kept staying there and depended on NGOs for food.”
The authorities closed nine camps between May 2021 and December 2022 and relocated over 153,000 people. Many of them have moved to sites across the state, while others chose to remain in host communities around the capital city. Resettled IDPs in all these places have narrated experiences of hardship, starvation, and uncertainty. They no longer receive stable humanitarian aid, and their attempts at squeezing a living from farming or fetching firewood are blocked by terrorists waiting for them to venture far enough into the bush and farmlands.
But it is not only the displaced people who face tough, uncertain times. Many of the camps they left behind have suffered a similar fate.
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