(Quick News Africa)- Over 10,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) are scattered all over Abuja, the Nigerian capital, residing in camps and in private homes of benevolent Nigerians who have volunteered to accommodate them.
Abbas Idris, director of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Emergency Management Agency, stated this Tuesday by while addressing a press conference in Abuja.
Idris said the agency, in collaboration with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), has distributed relief materials to various IDP settlements in the FCT and has also collaborated with the FCT health secretariat to carry out immunization programmes against killer diseases, as well as screen many more for communicable diseases.
Also, in collaboration with TY Danjuma Foundation, it has trained women and children on ICT, bead making and tailoring which.
Currently, Idris said, IDPs are being trained on rice farming, in collaboration with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
On education, he revealed that over 1, 435 IDP children are in schools across the FCT, out of which 99 percent are orphaned by insurgency.
In a related development, Idris revealed that 300 IDP children are enjoying scholarship from Aisha Buhari, wife of the Nigerian president.
Through her pet project, she has taken over the management of a school in Gwarinpa, Abuja, where the children are enjoying boarding facilities.
Idris called on other good spirited Nigerians to emulate Buhari’s gesture and offer scholarship to more IDP children to help develop them through education.
Idris also disclosed that his agency received a total of 486 fire calls and 40 rescue calls in 2015, while in 2016, 406 fire calls and 50 rescue calls were received.
In responding to these distresses, N3, 103,600,000 was saved in 2015 while the sum of N2, 465, 400, 000 was saved in 2016 and in the same year 163 lives were saved.
