Food or Death? Displaced Nigerian villagers face tragic choices amid humanitarian crisis

In June, Kabiru Salihu and Saleh Alhajin Kara sneaked back into their terror-stricken home in Bassa village, Shiroro Local Government Area (LGA) of Niger State, to collect food for their families taking refuge in the garrison town of Erena. They never returned. Terrorists operating from the nearby Allawa forest reserve captured and beheaded them.

The news of their deaths reached their families after gory images of their severed heads, blotched with bloodstains, went viral. Local vigilantes and some brave villagers who had gone to evacuate their bodies took the pictures. Their families and other displaced locals from more than 12 villages across the Allawa district continue to face hardship.

On 21 August, no fewer than eight displaced men from the Allawa district were killed at a mining site in Unguwar Magiro, Rafi LGA, where lead poisoning affected about 2,500 children and killed at least 30 in 2015.

These men were farmers who resorted to artisanal mining because they could not risk returning to their farms vulnerable to terror invasions.

While some of them drowned trying to escape the terror, a few others whose pictures of their bodies were shared with our reporter were shot at close range.

“Since our displacement, that is where many of us get some money to feed our families,” said Yahuza Agumi, one of the displaced people from Allawa, now a refugee in Erena.

Those killed at the mining site were refugees at an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in Kuta, the headquarters of Shiroro LGA.

Died searching for what to eat

On 24 April, a landmine attack that targeted soldiers newly deployed to Allawa town forced the military to shut its base there. Afraid of what would come after, the locals also fled. But because the government left them to suffer the hardship of displacement, some people went back secretly to get the foodstuff they had left behind. Many of them, like Messrs Salihu and Alhajin Kara [killed in June], lost their lives in the process.

At least 17 of the displaced locals who went to get food for their families were killed by the terrorists. Eleven others died of acute hardship in their displacement camp at Central Primary School, Erena.

A day after the town was deserted, about ten men returned to get their belongings and food. But seven of them were killed, according to a man who escaped from the scene.

“We only went to fetch some food like maize and millet from our houses,” Muhammad Iliya told PREMIUM TIMES in May. “Everybody left the village on Thursday, 25 April, and we went back three days later.”

Mr Iliya said he fled the scene when he saw that the terrorists had captured his colleagues. He later learned that the “monsters” slaughtered them.

That was not the first time locals would desert Allawa to escape terrorists’ wrath, Abubakar Bako, a traditional title holder from the town, told PREMIUM TIMES when our reporter visited Erena, where he was living as a refugee.

In 2015, they were enjoying the fall of the night when some gun-wielding men — for the first time — arrived in the town, killing the district head, Adam Salihu; his secretary, Usman Yunusa; a medical doctor, Muhammed Salishu, and a police officer.

“The attack forced us to flee Allawa,” he recalled, his eyes half closed as he flashed back into the genesis of their ordeals.

“Some went to Pandogari, some… to Erena and others fled to Kuta,” Mr Bako, who holds the traditional title of Gundunma Allawa, continued. He said their nightmare ended, albeit temporarily, after the government placed a “force operational base” in the community and deployed a team of the Joint Task Force (JTF) there.

Five years later, the terrorists struck again. This time, it was more deadly.

“They attacked the military base in 2021. It was around 2 a.m. and they killed six soldiers and a policeman,” Mr Bako narrated.

That incident led to the withdrawal of the soldiers and the locals also fled to various locations, where they took refuge in 2015.

Soldiers returned to the community some months later. However, their presence did not shield the community from wanton attacks by the terrorists.

Before the 24 April attack that again forced the military to retreat, there were at least five major attacks on the community and its environs.

In one of those attacks, the terrorists kidnapped 24 people, including women and children. “We have not heard from them for a long time now,” Mr Bako said, lowering his gaze. “Although two of them escaped the day they were kidnapped, 22 people remain with them.”

In another instance when the terrorists attacked and found no one, they razed houses, foodstuff and livestock before retreating into the forest as soldiers engaged them from afar.

Worsening humanitarian crisis

The displaced people in Erena town said they have only received government support once since they were displaced in April.

In May, the Niger State Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management distributed 100 units of 10kg bags of rice, 150 units of 10kg bags of maize and 150 units of 10kg bags of guinea corn to the displaced person in Erena, PREMIUM TIMES gathered. But that did not last up to a week, many of them, including Mr Bako, lamented.

Since then, they have been left to care for themselves. While the women and their children roam the streets begging for food and alms, the men dive deep into mining pits or risk their lives to get some of the food they left behind at home.

In the classrooms where the displaced persons camp at the Central Primary School Erena, chairs and desks have been replaced with wrappers and mats upon which they sleep at night. The already defaced walls were further punctured with nails hanging their mosquito nets.

Hadiza Musa, a nursing mother, sat inside the camp, her arms bare against the peeling green wall, cradling her three-week-old daughter between her legs.

She had delivered the baby on the floor inside the camp in late April — without access to basic maternal care, she said.

“This is where I delivered my baby,” Mrs Musa said, pointing to the sandy floor in front of the makeshift classroom where she sleeps with her newborn and four other children.

“My fellow refugees heard her cries and rushed to my aid, cleaning me and the baby,” she continued with a smile that was soon suspended as she recalled how she almost went on an empty stomach that day.

“There was no food to eat that day and my husband had gone to find something for us to eat and didn’t return until the next day,” Mrs Musa paused before she led our reporter into the classroom where she sleeps.

Inside the classroom, Mrs Musa battled with butterflies, using a wrapper to swat them before gently placing her baby on a thin mat, covering her with layers of wrappers. “This is how we sleep here,” she replied when asked if she used repellants or a mosquito net.

Mrs Musa later strapped her baby to her back and disappeared into a thin crowd inside the camp.

Habibu Wushishi, the spokesperson for the Niger State Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, said the ministry was aware of the conditions the displaced person faced but noted that the state government had not abandoned them.

Throughout May, June and July, Mr Wushishi said, the ministry distributed relief materials across various IDP camps in the state, including three major ones in Shiroro: Kuta, Gwada and Erena.

“It was not only food,” the ministry’s spokesperson said. “We also distributed educational materials and blankets.”

Mr Wushishi said the ministry engages “critical stakeholders” such as the “traditional leaders, religious leaders, council officials and security agencies” to distribute the materials.

But because of the security situation in the areas where some of these camps are located in Shiroro LGA, Mr Wushsishi said the ministry usually took the relief materials to Kuta, the headquarters of the LGA, to “these stakeholders” for onward distribution to the other camps.

He said if anyone is found to have diverted the materials, the ministry would ensure they are prosecuted.

Campaign of terror in Shiroro

What started as cattle rustling has now transformed into full-fledge banditry and terrorism in some parts of the local government area, including Allawa, Bassa, Kurebe, Chukuba, Kwakki, Gbato, Sarari, Mai Kanwa, Gwoska and Rafin Kanya.

The most terror-ravaged part of Shiroro is the riverine axis, locally referred to as Lakpma.

There are 15 political wards in Shiroro LGA, with eight of them in the Lakpma axis under incessant attacks, according to youth leaders who spoke to PREMIUM TIMES in May.

The campaign of terror in Shiroro has yielded success for the terrorists who hold sway over territories and impose their ruling system there. One of these communities, Kurebe, has suffered more from the terrorists’ activities.

In Kurebe, insurgents connected to Boko Haram have gone from attacking the locals and pillaging the village to indoctrinating some villagers. At a point, the group would assemble the youth in the village and propagate their version of Islam to them.

There is no evidence of mass weddings with insurgents, as claimed in some media reports some years ago, but a young woman identified as Zainab was married to one of them.

Also, the group had forcefully taken a minor away from his parents, claiming to teach him a way of living.

PREMIUM TIMES learned that some Boko Haram insurgents have taken over parts of Allawa Game Reserve in the local government. The forest reserve connects to the Kamuku forest in Kaduna and some other forests in Zamfara.

Withdrawal of Soldiers

The Niger State Commissioner for Homeland Security, Garba Mohammed, in April, told this newspaper that the withdrawal of the military operatives was in line with an “administrative arrangement” for reinforcement against the terrorists.

Mr Mohammed, a retired major-general, later told PREMIUM TIMES in June that the state government was trying to relocate the displaced persons and those still living in terror-ravaged communities.

According to him, the plan is to build a resettlement centre for the displaced persons where they can carry out normal activities, including farming.