By Ijeoma Obioma in Makurdi.
In the heart of Benue State, over 150,000 people from Turan in Kwande Local Government Area have been cast into a life of misery, wandering with no roof, no food, no peace, and no place to call home.
These are not just numbers but broken families, helpless children, and shattered elders forced to sleep on trees and cold earth in Jato-Aka, the last standing community in a land once vibrant but now swallowed by violence and fear.
The Benue NGOs Network (BENGONET) sounded the alarm in Makurdi, revealing that more than 5,700 lives have been claimed in the unending wave of terror that has plagued Turan for 14 long, unhealed years. The numbers tell of massacres. The silence that followed tells of neglect.
Lazarus Mom, BENGONET’s coordinator, nearly broke down as he recounted findings from a two-day visit to what is left of Kwande. “We listened to voices soaked in sorrow. We saw homes turned to ashes. We walked through farmlands that will never grow again,”
The entire community no longer exists. Churches and schools have become ghostly ruins. The displaced now sleep in the trees not by choice, but because they have nothing, not even the promise of safety,” he said.
The group uncovered that border disputes with neighboring Taraba, fueled by competition over mineral-rich lands and unchecked open grazing, have turned once-peaceful villages into war zones. The law meant to prevent this, the Anti-Open Grazing Law, is barely enforced. The killers come, and there’s no one to stop them. They leave, and no one comes to help.
And so the people suffer, unseen.
BENGONET called for urgent action: genuine peace talks between state governments, real enforcement of security laws, proper security presence, and,at the very least, a camp. A camp for these human beings who have been left to drift like forgotten shadows.
“There’s no camp,” Mom repeated bitterly. “Not one tent. Not one toilet. Not even the dignity of being counted,”he added.
BENGONET pleaded with the government and humanitarian agencies to stop looking away. “We need help. Not tomorrow. Now.”
Edited by Dada Ahmed.
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