USAID spends $240m on IDPs in North-East

MAIDUGURI—THE United States Agency for International Development, USAID, yesterday said it had spent over $240 million on the welfare among others of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) across the North-East.
The country Director of USID Micheal Harvey, told newsmen in Maiduguri, Bornu State, that the money was spent mainly on health, sanitation and
education of the IDPs. The Country Director, who spoke while inspecting facilities at the Bakasi camp Maiduguri, said the agency was in Maiduguri to assess the conditions of the IDPs to see ways of offering further assistance. According to him, USAID was partnering with Bornu State Government and other international Non Governmental Organizations, NGOs, to assist the IDPs, especially in the areas of education, health and sanitation and the provision of electronic cash vouchers for the IDPs to buy food and medicine. “We are going to provide text books and other instructional materials and trained teachers, as there are formal schools in most of the camps. We are also working very hard to see that children who were thrown out of school because of insurgency are not roaming the streets without going to school,” he stated. Mr. Harvey prayed for the speedy restoration of peace in the North-east region, so that the IDPs would go back to their various communities and pick up the pieces of their lives. While interacting with the IDPs, an Arabic teacher and a community leader from Gwoza Yau Buba, lamented how their children roamed the streets without going to school, resulting into gross indiscipline.