More than 100,000 people uprooted by violence and living in camps in northeast Nigeria are set to return home soon, but many fear for their safety and ability to rebuild their lives, aid agency staff said on Thursday.
The Nigerian government plans to close in the coming months camps housing 150,000 displaced people in Borno and Adamawa states as security improves in the north, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The army has this year recaptured much of the territory seized by Boko Haram in its six-year campaign to carve out an Islamic state in the northeast, but the militants have since struck back with a surge of deadly raids and suicide bombings.
Most people living in camps want to return home but are worried about the threat of attacks and lack confidence in the military’s ability to protect them, Reuters quoted Stéphanie Daviot of the International Organisation for Migration as saying.
“They also say that the economic situation is not stable enough to go back, as shops and services have not been reopened, there is little work and their land has not been preserved… many people do not have the money to restart their lives.”
Many of those who have already gone home have found their houses and land destroyed or occupied by others, Daviot added.
Credit: ChannelsTV
