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| Some displaced Christians at a revival.in Nigeria. |
By Samuel Smith, CP Reporter
Elaigwu fled Borno
state during the beginning of the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram’s
insurgency in the northeast that displaced millions and killed thousands in the
last decade-plus. In an interview with The Christian Post, he explained that he
sold his home in Maiduguri at a “giveaway” price so he could escape the
violence with his family in 2010.
After fleeing to the city of Abuja in the center of the country,
Elaigwu moved his family again three years later in response to deadly twin
bombings claimed by Boko Haram months earlier not too far from his home. He and
his family moved back to his hometown in the lush Middle Belt state of Benue in
December 2014 hoping to find peace in a familiar place.
“I saw the need to be
home where there would be no need for running anymore,” Elaigwu said of moving
back to his native local government area of Agatu, a predominantly Christian
farming community. “I hardly had settled when the trouble started. The Fulani
herdsmen were on the ground and they were causing everybody to flee again.”
The U.N. estimates that there are over 2.4 million people
displaced by Boko Haram’s insurgency in northeast Nigeria and across the Lake
Chad region.
Meanwhile, there are
hundreds of thousands of people like Elaigwu from farming communities who
have been displaced in Middle Belt states like Benue, Plateau,
Taraba and Kaduna due to massacres committed by militants from nomadic
predominantly Muslim Fulani herding communities in recent years.
Elaigwu, who was
affiliated with the Pentecostal Redeemed Christian Church of God before
becoming an independent pastor, said Agatu is a fertile place for farming
almost all year-round because of all the tributaries of the Benue River. He
warned that Fulani militants now “have a desire to push my people away from
here so they can have it.”
Weeks after he settled
into his new home in Agatu, he found himself helping many of his new neighbors
flee from their village due to the threat of encroaching Fulani militants who
raided and burned other villages in the area.
“I have a Range Rover
van from 1999. It was very serviceable,” Elaigwu detailed. “We packed as many
people as possible in the van to [transport them] from the village to the
neighboring local government area. Some folks had to sit on top of the roof. On
the road, we met old people who were struggling and asking us to carry them. It
was one experience I don’t want to remember.”
By the time they arrived in the neighboring local government area
of Otukpo, about 100 kilometers away, Elaigwu said the reality of the situation
had set in.
“By the time you have
gone to a good place for safety, you discover that you lose everything that you
have left behind: livestock, foodstuff, property,” he said. “You just come back
and things are gone. We lost so many things to their campaigns of war.”
What’s the situation?
With crises going on
in both the northeast and middle parts of Nigeria, some estimates have
suggested that as many as 11,500 Christians have been killed in the country
since June 2015 by Boko Haram, its splinter group (Islamic State West Africa
Province), Fulani herdsmen and highway bandits.
The International
Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law estimates that no
fewer than 20 clergymen have been killed and no less than 50 clergymen have
been kidnapped during that time. Also, hundreds of women and girls have
been kidnapped by Boko
Haram and held captive in its barracks in the Sambisa Forest.
International human
rights groups such as the Jubilee Campaign and Christian Solidarity
International have warned that
the level of violence against Christians in Nigeria has risen to the level
of genocide.
Many of those
displaced in Nigeria — Christians and Muslims — are living in displacement
camps, in the homes of relatives or host communities. Many are living in hunger
and lack access to medical care as well as education as their plight fails to
receive attention from the international mainstream media.
According to the U.N., the decadelong crisis in the
northeast alone has left over 7 million people in need of humanitarian
assistance in the northeastern states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe. Most of those
displaced by Boko Haram are in the Muslim majority Borno state. The U.N. Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that most of those
displaced in Borno are women and children with about a quarter being younger than
age 5.
Violence in the Middle
Belt — a region known as Nigeria’s food basket — has resulted in reduced crop productivity as
farming communities have been displaced without access to their
farmlands.
Advocates say that
those displaced complain of receiving little to no help from the federal
government and minimal help from state governments.
A lack of humanitarian
assistance and food is causing some displaced communities to compete with each
other for resources, one source who spoke with CP explained.
Although there are
some international and domestic nongovernmental organizations and church bodies
doing their part to assist victims in both the northeast and Middle Belt, one
church leader told CP that donor fatigue is starting to set in and more
assistance is needed to help these communities overcome not only the hardships
of displacement but the trauma from their horrific experiences.
Abducted by Boko Haram
Amina Adams Ghumdia, a
mother of five, fled from Maiduguri in Borno to neighboring Adamawa state after
her husband was killed and two of her sons were injured in a Boko Haram attack
on their home in October 2012.
“So many of them
entered our house around 7 p.m. in the evening,” she told CP of the attack in a
phone interview, adding that her family was targeted for being Christians.
“They entered the house and they attacked all of us in the house and then they
slaughtered two of my children and then my husband.”
She initially stayed
with her sister in Adamawa until she was able to find a house to rent for her
family.
Although Ghumdia moved
to Adamawa to escape the violence, she was abducted by Boko Haram militants in
June 2017 while transporting her in-laws’ car to her new home from Maiduguri.
She was taken along with 15 others — a group that included 11 women and five
men.
Ghumdia said the
militants killed the five men and took the 11 women to their headquarters in
the Sambisa Forest where they were held for eight months and released to the
Red Cross after negotiation by the government. However, one of the ladies she was
with did not make it through the ordeal alive.
Although she was not
physically harmed by the militants during her imprisonment, she said she was
forced to sleep in a room with 10 other women and was not given a lot of food.
She said they felt like prisoners as they were not allowed to go outside of the
compound. She said they had little interaction with other groups of women and
girls that have been kidnapped by Boko Haram such as the Chibok
schoolgirls.
“They used to try to
at least convince us so that we can denounce Christ. But God be the glory, all
of us were on the same line, all of us didn’t denounce Christ,” Ghumdia
recalled of her time in the forest. “They did not even force us. They would
just come and preach to us to convince us so that we can denounce Christ. But
we all refused.”
Living in Adamawa
again after her release from the terrorists, Ghumdia said she has received
little in the way of humanitarian assistance outside of a donation from the
Christian group Mission Africa International,
who helped her pay for her children’s tuition fees.
“Things have never
been improving in Adamawa,” she said. “It’s been very, very difficult for me. I
was working in Borno state. Since when they abducted me, I did not go back to
my work. For six months they did not pay me. It’s only last month that they
have started paying me. It is very hard for me since my children are in school
and I am raising a house. Things are just very difficult.”
Similar to people
displaced in other states, many displaced in Borno and Adamawa live in
organized displacement camps in tents and others are living in host
communities.
“There is a staggering
number of people who have been displaced,” said Father Joseph Bature, the
director of psychological support and trauma care for the Justice Development
& Peace Commission of the Catholic Diocese of Maiduguri.
“Some can't even find space to live in the camps. Some have their
relatives or their townsmen that live around Maiduguri, so they prefer to stay
with them. Christians will mostly live with host communities.”
Bature said that camps
in Borno where there is the presence of major international organizations and
state actors are more organized. Food is given out to the displaced and there
are opportunities for medical care and education.
“Living in a camp is
not always very easy. You have a lot of difficulties. Sometimes the supplies
are short,” he said.
In other camps where
there are no international actors present to provide humanitarian support and
entrepreneurial training opportunities, Bature said, displaced persons are
essentially living in poverty.
“They suffer and they
just live from day to day hoping that some help comes to them,” he said. “Those
are the kind of camps who still need help.”
Source:
https://www.christianpost.com/news/nigerias-genocide-who-is-helping-the-thousands-of-displaced-christians.html?uid=*|UNIQID|*
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