Ortom: Benue Endangered As Over 10, 000 Cameroonian Refugees Take Asylum In State

Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom Wednesday expressed deep worry over the massive influx of the Cameroonian refugees into the state saying the state currently hosts over 10,000 of the refugees who are taking asylum in the state due to the crises in Southern Cameroon.

This is just as he also lamented the rising number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) of militia herdsmen attacks whose number he said has risen to over two million and displaced flood disaster victims where over 134, 000 persons including school children have been displaced.

He said that the state is now endangered as a result of the humanitarian challenge the state is grappling with.

The governor stated this when he received an Inter-Agency Technical Committee delegation from the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development who paid him a courtesy call at the Government House in Makurdi.

He maintained that it was not an easy task for the state to manage the refugees and IDPs and urged the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development to intervene to cushion the burden.

“We remain an endangered state as far as issues of refugees and IDPs are concerned in our country Nigeria” stressing that since 2017, “the state has continued to witness influx of IDPs in the various official and unofficial established camps,” he said.

(New Telegraph)