Nigerians who fled Boko Haram return home to poverty

Millions of Nigerians who fled Boko Haram terrorists are returning home years later to find their villages razed and farmlands barren.

Once refugees in neighboring countries, now they are refugees in their own.

Camps are set up for internally displaced people but with little food, water, or health care life is exceedingly hard.

“We have about 144,000 internally displaced persons in the Ngala IDP camp and in that whole number, all of them depend on the borehole that is behind us for portable water,” said Lt. Col. Patrick Omoke.

Omoke overseas an IDP camp in Ngala.

“In that camp now, we only have four nurses and one medical doctor to cater for this number of people,” Omake said.

Even providing basic shelter was difficult, he said.

Ngala is only one of many camps.

Some 4.7 million Nigerians depend upon outside aid, which often fails to arrive, or is stolen.

Cesar Tishilombo runs a U.N. refugee agency sub-office in Maiduguri, capital of the state of Borno. He said up to 3 million people were at risk of famine in areas recently recaptured from Boko Haram.

A spokesman for President Muhammadu Buhari declined to comment on claims of corruption linked to aid deliveries, but the president admits corruption halts or hinders recovery in areas recaptured from the terrorists.