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Adamawa IDPs face food shortages, impending starvation

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Adamawa IDPs face food shortages, impending starvation

About 1,400 Nigerians staying at the Internally Displaced Persons, IDP camp in Fufore, Adamawa State, are reportedly facing severe food shortages.

A leader of IDPs in Fofure, who spoke to the NAN on Saturday in Yola, Bakura Umar, alleged that the National Emergency Management Agency had not supplied food to them in the last three months.

Umar said: “About 1,400 IDPs, mostly women, children and elderly people are facing starvation due to the acute food shortage in Fufore camp.

“In the past three months, NEMA  has not  supplied  food to the camp and we are facing hunger.

“Because of the situation,  we have been going to  Fufore town and other nearby villages to look for food in order to survive.”

Umar, who claimed that they  have  been in the camp since 2014 and  that NEMA  was giving them  food items  on a monthly basis, said IDPs in the camp were from Bama, Gwoza and Gamboru Ngala in Borno State.

Apealing to the authorities to come totheir aid, Umar equally revealed that they were brought to the camp from  Cameroon where they fled to after Boko Haram overran their villages and towns in 2013.

Responding to Umar’s claims, the NEMA Operational Officer in charge of Adamawa and Taraba  states, Alhaji Abani Garki, dismissed  claims  of food shortages in the camp.

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Garki, who spoke to NAN, said NEMA was aware of  the delay in supplying   food to the camp.

He said: “But there is nothing like starvation in the camp.

“In fact, the delay was not as they claimed because we experienced a short delay in  food supply in January  due to some logistic challenges which affected us  in February and March.

“The agency is trying all it can to ensure the IDPs are taken care of properly.”

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