The closure of camps for people displaced by Islamist militants in Nigeria's Borno state has pushed more than 200,000 people into extreme poverty, a rights group says.
The 59-page report by Human Rights Watch was released Wednesday, more than one year after Borno state authorities began shutting down IDP camps in the capital, Maiduguri.
The rights group said lack of essential support by humanitarian aid organizations since then has pushed over 200,000 IDPs into deeper suffering and destitution. It said authorities did not provide those removed from camps with adequate support for food, shelter and security.
Anietie Ewang, author of the Human Rights Watch report, said authorities did not get the opinions of the IDPs before closing the camps.
"This plan to shut down these camps is very premature because the authorities cannot ensure that people who are moving out of these camps can continue to sustain themselves," she said. "In many of the places they're urging people to return to, there's not enough infrastructure to support the large number of people coming in."
The report said more than 140,000 IDPs were compelled to evacuate eight camps in Maiduguri between May 2021 and August of this year. It said two other camps housing a total of nearly 74,000 people are expected close by the end of 2022.
Borno state authorities said the decision was made to resettle IDPs back to their ancestral homes, reduce reliance on aid, and foster the redevelopment plan for the conflict-stricken state.
Baba Ali Mustapha, the immediate past welfare coordinator for the Borno state ministry of women affairs, defended the decision to close the camps, saying authorities have been making efforts to help the IDP's resettle.
"The state government did it with the intention to build their resilience," he said. "That doesn't mean they're left stranded. Monthly, the state government goes to give them food items, some of them were even given starter packs to start a business. It's a gradual process.”
But Ewang questioned whether Nigerian authorities made the right decision.
"When you cut off people from their source which is predominantly humanitarian aid on the premise that you want to wean them off of food aid to develop and you're not putting in place any sort of alternatives, are you really pursuing a development objective?" she said. "We're not seeing people benefit, we're rather seeing people suffer, and that is really concerning for us."
Millions of people in northeast Nigeria have been displaced from their homes since the Boko Haram insurgency began in 2009, with more than 1.8 million displaced in Borno state alone.
