Agency Report
Twenty babies have been born in seven years in an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in Edo State, Nigeria’s South-south, according to an official.
The camp, called IDP camp of Christian Home for the Needy, which is for orphans and homeless children, is in Uhogua, Ovia North-East Local Government Area of the state.
The official, Evelyn Omijie, who is the assistant coordinator of the camp, disclosed this on Sunday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
“The babies were given birth to by married young couples among the IDPs who were allowed to stay together.
“We did not record any unwanted births among the singles in the camp. We have a standard in the camp and this includes the demarcation of the females’ living quarters from the males’ living quarters.
“Also, the females are never allowed to go to the males’ living quarters and vice versa.
“We also teach morals and let them understand that they already have enough on their hands, which is being in the camp because they have been displaced and so it is pertinent that they live a meaningful life and not destroy themselves,” she said.
Mrs Omijie said that with such guidance, counselling and training, the management of the camp has been able to ensure and maintain sanity in the camp among the IDPs.
“With guidance and counselling, all they want is to be someone in life,” he said.
The assistant coordinator said the IDPs were doing “excellently well” in their education.
She said one of the IDPs scored 298 in the recently concluded 2022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.
Several others, out of the 156 of them that sat for the examination, scored above 280.
She said more than 100 of the IDPs were writing both the junior and the senior West African Examination Council examinations, adding that she was optimistic they would equally excel.
“We wanted to enroll some of the IDPs for the NECO examination due to the paucity of funds.
“We are appealing to education agencies and Non-Governmental Organisations, government at all levels, individuals and corporate organisations to assist the IDPs by way of scholarship awards and sponsorship of their education.
“This is imperative because when they eventually achieve their educational feat, you will be glad you did, because you will be part of their success story,” she said.
Mrs Omijie also called for support and assistance from the general public to enable the camp management meet up with regular feeding for the IDPs.
“As I speak to you now, we don’t have food in our warehouse, what we have is what we give to them, which is even below standard and quantity.
“But they say half bread is better than none. We are calling on everyone to come to the aid of these children who are victims of what they never planned,” she said.
She also appealed to pharmaceutical companies to assist the camp with medicine of all kinds, especially anti malaria and antibiotics.
The camp has a population of about 2, 000 made up mostly of Christians from Borno and Adamawa states.
(NAN)
