BY NONYELUM JULIET EKWENUGO
Kaduna
Justice Development and Peace Caritas (JDPC) has donated food items and sanitary pads to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Maraban Rido, Chikun LGA of Kaduna State.
The Coordinator of JDPC Kaduna, Rev. Fr. Joshua Achir who spoke to Journalists after donating the relief materials disclosed that JDPC will empower over 41 IDPs who showed interest in learning skills to better their means of livelihood.
“We are empowering 41 of the IDPs who indicated interest, they are going to learn skills like tailoring, hair dressing, soap and detergent making to enable them better their lives and that of their families”.
He further appealed to humanitarian organizations and well meaning Nigerians to support the IDPs, saying that their lives is pathetic.
Achir called on the government to live up to their responsibility of securing lives and property of Nigerians to enable them go about their normal businesses, he said.
The food items distributed includes; 20 bags of 100kg maize, 10 bags of 50kg rice, 5 bags of 100kg beans, 150 litres of palm oil, 3 cartoons of sanitary pads and many others.
A 13 year old Sandra Yohana who narrated her ordeal in camp said, her mother usually put salt in water for her and her siblings to drink and sleep.
“My mother gave birth to 10 of us, we were kidnapped in 2021, my parents sold all our property to pay ransom, we don’t have any food at home, all of us are no longer going to school because my mother could not afford to pay our school fees. Sometimes my mother will put salt in water and ask us to drink and sleep because there was no food”.
“Am appealing to Nigerians to help us and other IDPs with food and education because some of us wants to go to school to be able to help our families”.
The Coordinator of the IDPs, Adams Sule said “we have about 2500 children here, most of the children are orphans, their parents were killed by bandits, most of the women here are widows, their husbands killed, we have over 4000 IDPs”.
“Our major challenges here is hunger, the IDPs are suffering, our children can no longer go to school because our source of income is farming which the bandits have taken away from us”.
He therefore appealed to Nigerians to support the IDPs especially the children, in order for them to go back to school.
