The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Sadiya Umar Farouq, said Nigeria as of January 2020 had a total of 2,583,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)
The Minister who disclosed this on Tuesday while flagging off the Psycho-Social support and empowerment training for a section of IDPs in the state said the IDPs were displaced due to violence and conflicts.
Speaking through one of the Deputy Directors in the Ministry, Peter Audu, the minister said the displacement comes with a lot of incidents and experiences that leave the victims or affected persons traumatized.
Apart from leaving them traumatized, families, according to her, were “separated, communities destroyed, and basic infrastructure damaged.”
She expressed sadness that basic social and economic activities in the various communities have been disrupted creating an urgency for humanitarian action in the last few years.
Farouq said displacements have occurred in various parts of the country, coming along with its trademark of trauma and other social issues that also has a lot of impact on the mental health of affected persons.
Justifying the programme, she said it is geared towards returning IDPs to their normal and familiar routines, engaging their mental abilities to the understanding that life is gradually normalizing and empowering them economically to help in meeting their family needs as they exit the camp.
Farouq insisted that the Ministry is committed to ensuring that the strategic objectives of all the social intervention programs in the country are achieved
