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Newspaper of the Year<br />
AN 8-PAGE PULLOUT ON NORTHERN STATES TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 2015 PAGE 29<br />
INSIDE<br />
Hope’s eye<br />
surgery<br />
deferred<br />
PAGE 30<br />
New deal<br />
for council<br />
residents<br />
PAGE 31<br />
•One of the IDP camps in Abuja<br />
Tough life for displaced kids<br />
On come<br />
the lights<br />
At the camps where about 800,000 displaced children are sheltering across the North,<br />
living conditions are as dreadful as the kids’ future is bleak. TONY AKOWE and YUSUFU<br />
AMINU IDEGU report<br />
THE children are scattered<br />
all over the North, all<br />
800,000 of them, in camps<br />
which offer little relief. Food is<br />
insufficient. Sleeping places are<br />
unspeakably bad. A feeling of<br />
neglect hangs over the camps.<br />
Six-year-old Mubarak Adamu,<br />
one of the children at the Internally<br />
Displaced Persons camp at<br />
Durumi II in Abuja, reads his<br />
ABCs with passion. He is probably<br />
looking forward to growing<br />
up and becoming a leader<br />
someday. Like many other children<br />
in the camp and others<br />
across the region, Mubarak may<br />
never fulfil that dream.<br />
Why?<br />
He cannot go to a formal school<br />
because of Boko Haram insurgents<br />
who chased him and others<br />
away from their homes in<br />
Borno State. He is exposed to<br />
harsh living conditions in the<br />
uncompleted two-storey building<br />
that has served as his home<br />
for several months since they<br />
moved to Abuja from Bama in<br />
Borno State. He is forced to sleep<br />
on a bare hard floor with his<br />
mother’s wrapper serving as his<br />
bed. The environment he plays in<br />
is not habitable at all with dirt all<br />
over the place, and the smell of human<br />
waste rife.<br />
•Some of the displaced children in a makeshift classroom<br />
Mubarak, like many of the other<br />
children at the camp, is lucky,<br />
though, to have volunteers who<br />
teach him and some others the basics<br />
of education.<br />
Hafsat Ahmed, Halima Isa and<br />
Tanko battle to teach the children<br />
even though they don’t have teaching<br />
aids. Unfortunately in spite of<br />
the harsh living conditions, they<br />
are also harassed and intimidated<br />
by security men who constantly<br />
raid their camps.<br />
One of the leaders of the IDPs,<br />
Zubairu Mohammed who said that<br />
they have been abandoned by government,<br />
lamented that their children<br />
are exposed to health hazards.<br />
He said that there are serious health<br />
and other challenges in the camp,<br />
adding that their children are<br />
mostly affected. According to him,<br />
there are about 40 children who<br />
urgently need medical attention<br />
which they cannot afford.<br />
He said security personnel especially<br />
the military often come to arrest<br />
people, claiming they are crimi-<br />
PAGE 33<br />
Enter farewell<br />
visitors<br />
•Continued on page 30 PAGE 36
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