Forced Displacement and the Plight of Internally Displaced Persons in Northeast Nigeria

Abstract

Since the end of the Cold War, the phenomenon of forced displacement gained more global attention. Forced displacement involves the involuntary movement of people from their habitual place of residence to a location within their country of nationality; or across an internationally recognised border. This situation in most cases exposes the displaced people to some vulnerabilities. Among other classes of displaced people, the most notable groups of concern are refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). In contemporary time, conflict is identified to be the primary cause of forced displacement. Since 2009, the Boko Haram insurgency and the counter-insurgency by the Nigerian security forces turned northeast Nigeria into a conflict zone. The crisis has forced more than 2 million people to flee for safety within Nigeria as internally displaced persons (IDPs); while many crossed the border into countries neighbouring Nigeria from the Lake Chad region as refugees. This paper explored and discussed the suffering of the people internally displaced by Boko Haram conflict from the framework of forced displacement. It is found that, the IDPs in Nigeria suffered from multifaceted problems, ranging from the issues of inadequate life-saving assistance, protection related crisis, and the unclear prospect of achieving durable solutions. Moreover, the lack of a clear national policy, institutional, and legal frameworks in addressing internal displacement in Nigeria is found to be the prime cause of the intensification of the plight of IDPs. Thus, it is recommended that, there should be a legally backed national policy on IDPs, which should include punitive measures for corrupt humanitarian officers. Also, provision should be made for effective coordination among national humanitarian agencies. Lastly, a clear rule of engagement between the Government and the international humanitarian agencies should be clearly defined.

Understanding the Needs of Adult Internally Displaced Persons in Three North-Eastern States of Nigeria: The Impact of Humanitarian Response Program

“…This study found that the major non-health challenges of the IDPs are lack of food and clothing, frequent illness due to lack of drugs and no doctors to attend to their health need. These findings are in line with the reports of previous studies that enumerated the challenges of IPDs in Nigeria as "lack of education, shelter, food, health care, and potable water" (USAID, 2016;Obaji & Alobo, 2016;UNPF, 2016;Akuto, 2017;Mohammed, 2017;Gwadabe et al, 2018;Olanrewaju et al, 2018Olanrewaju et al, , 2019DTM Nigeria, 2019;Opara, 2019;Prince et al, 2019). A similar challenge was also reported in Colombia (Hines & Balletto, 2002), in Ethiopia (Eweka & Olusegun, 2016), in Iraq (REACH, 2016), in Kachin (Nau, 2014), in Angola, Somalia, Indonesia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Colombia, Liberia, Eritrea, and Sudan (Borton et al, 2005).…”

“…The lack of drugs can be attributed to the many health facilities that have been destroyed through bomb blast or suicide attacks on health facilities in this region. Previous studies have reported malaria, fever, and diarrhoea as the major health challenge in IDP camps (Eweka & Olusegun, 2016;UNPF, 2016;Gwadabe et al, 2018;WHO, 2018;DTM Nigeria, 2019) while some have documented a high rate of skin infections (Özcebe et al, 2014;Elfaituri, 2016;USAID, 2016).…”

Insecurity, Resource Scarcity, and Migration to Camps of Internally Displaced Persons in Northeast Nigeria

“…Migration in this paper is more related to forced displacements than to any other form of migration. Forced migration has been defined as the movement of people, displaced by conflict, natural or environmental disasters, or the consequences of the previous factors such as famine [15]. The intensification of attacks by non-state armed groups in northeast Nigeria since 2015 has resulted in prolonged insecurity, exacerbating the plight of vulnerable civilians, and triggered waves of forced displacement as well as violations of human rights [33].…”

“…Boko Haram insurgency and the counter-insurgency by the Nigerian security forces is the primary cause of forced displacements in Nigeria [15]. Since 2009, the crisis caused by this conflict has forced more than two million people to flee for safety within Nigeria.…”

“…This study is innovative in that it introduces a quantitative approach to environmental change and perceived insecurity as factors leading to migration. Existing studies have primarily focused on one of the factors and hardly used survey data (e.g., [15,19,21]). The current study provides a comparative analysis of political and environmental factors as drivers of migration.…”