The Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development Minister, Sadiya Umar Farouq has ordered the immediate delivery of food and non-food Palliatives to victims of the Muna El-Badawy Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camp in Maiduguri.
This followed a fire incident on Saturday which razed over 3,000 shelters in the camp. In a statement on Sunday by her special media aide Nneka Ikem Anibeze, the minister expressed sadness at the incident which rendered over 3,000 households homeless.
“On behalf of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, I sympathize with the government and people of Borno state over the fire incident which killed some people and destroyed shelters.
“This disaster has rendered many more people without shelter even as government intensifies efforts to re-settle Internally Displaced Persons.
“The spate of fire incidents in IDP camps have become recurrent and the ministry is putting up measures to educate the IDPs on ways of preventing such fire disasters,” the statement added.
The fire, which reportedly started from a tent, engulfed 3,000 others due to the absence of firefighting facilities.
The National Emergency Management Agency NEMA and SEMA have already begun an on-the-field assessment of the damage.
The minister has since directed that the affected IDPs be provided with food, water, and grains as well as non-food items like clothing, blankets, mosquito nets, and other items to temporarily cushion the hardship in camp due to the incident.
