Community leader, Mairi-Kuwait community in Jere local government area of Borno state, northeast Nigeria, Malam Usman Yaya has lamented the level of insecurity and constant attacks on community members who had to go to farm in order to have food on their table.
Speaking with DAILY POST in Maiduguri, Malam Yaya said the community buries between two and three people on a daily basis.
According to him, the community hosts more than 7,500 Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs and has a total population per household of 12,765.
“Those days when the military were patrolling the forest behind the university, there were very little chances for the insurgents to come around the farms nearby where the people work for their livelihoods. Now, we are relying on the strength of the youths civilian JTF and hunters, who are being supported with only five soldiers.
“You know this community is virtually at the fringes of Sambisa forest. Now, there are no activities here for people to live on except farming to keep body and soul together. But going out to the field is a matter of concern because going out is dangerous and not only dangerous but also suicidal,” he said.
He said that in the last six years, since returnees troop back home, the level of poverty in the community has skyrocketed because there was no arrangement from government and no organisation in the name of NGO that came for any intervention.
According to him, burying people every day is becoming a normal trend but calls for concern, as such, they are calling on the government to send more soldiers to dark spots and forest linking Sambisa in order to curtail the activities of insurgents in the area.
” If Boko Haram get our women, they beat them and asked them to go naked and they would send them home naked. For the men they slaughter them,” he said.
