Press Release - Durumi District IDP Camps Demolition: ActionAid Nigeria calls on FCTA to Resettle IDPs, Prioritise Women and Children

For Immediate Release

27th December 2022

ActionAid Nigeria (AAN) is concerned by the plights of the over three thousand inhabitants of Durumi IDP camp made up of 330 households, 70% of whom are women and children from Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe States, displaced by insurgents in the Northeast between 2012 and 2014. The camp was demolished on the 21st of December 2022 by the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) citing an upsurge in crime and criminality for the demolition.

Speaking in AAN's head office in Abuja, the Country Director, Comrade Ene Obi said ‘‘ActionAid Nigeria recognises that the office of the Permanent Secretary of FCTA seeks to rid Durumi district of criminal elements that are responsible for the lootings, killings, rape, traffic nuisance, drug peddling amongst others in the neighbourhood. However, it is crucial to note that this is an unsuitable time, amidst the Yuletide season, to carry out such ferocious exercise which has negative impacts on innocent and vulnerable displaced persons, particularly girls and women whose homes and sources of livelihood have now been destroyed. 

It is also important to note that the original communities these displaced persons came from are still under attack by insurgents and have no option of going there. It is therefore pertinent that Government makes alternate provisions for these Nigerians

FCTA in their notification stated that the FCT Emergency Management Agency and Social Development Secretariat would be activated to take appropriate humanitarian action. However, the details of this humanitarian action are unclear, and these should have been activated before the demolition occurred.’’

Comrade Ene Obi concluded by making a call on behalf of ActionAid Nigeria that ‘‘FCT Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and FCTA should consider as a matter of urgency, the establishment of an organised camp to resettle these set of vulnerable and Internally Displaced Persons. The administration owes her citizenry a duty to protect lives and property, but hundreds of families have lost their personal effects and now exposed to the same criminalities the agency is working to eliminate because of the demolition and the limited notice period given. Hence, FEMA is under obligation to provide food, non-food, and dignity kits to these vulnerable persons during this unjust period they have been subjected to.’’

SIGNED: Ene Obi, Country Director, ActionAid Nigeria

#ENDS

Editor’s Note

ActionAid Nigeria (AAN) is a national non-governmental, non-partisan, non-religious, civil society organization, and an affiliate member of the ActionAid International Federation with presence in forty-five countries. AAN works in solidarity with people living in poverty and exclusion to achieve social justice, gender equality and poverty eradication towards achieving a just, equitable and sustainable world in which every person enjoys the right to a life of dignity, freedom from poverty and all forms of oppression.

CONTACT

Oluwakemi Akinremi-Segun - Communications Coordinator ActionAid Nigeria |Tel: +234(0)8092076904 |  Email: Oluwakemi.AkinremiSe@actionaid.org | Twitter: @kemirewa | www.nigeria.actionaid.org