Makurdi: The Benue State Government has confirmed the arrest of 50 fake Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) at the International Market located along George Akume Way in Makurdi, the state capital.
The State Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Mr Aondowase Kunde, disclosed this on Saturday
in Makurdi.
Kunde said that criminals have infiltrated the IDP camp opened for victims of the Yelwata attack.
He said that 50 fake displaced persons had been arrested, adding that people from the host community and market women had all infiltrated the camp.
He stated that Friday night, the criminals broke into the camp and stole some non-food items while market women invaded the camp and bought food items distributed to them.
“We have had issues in the camp for the past two days, and we discovered a lot of infiltrators.
“We conducted investigations after the protest and discovered that criminals and people from the host community in Makurdi were behind the protest.
“So we resolved that we have to be at the camp by 4 am today (Saturday) to catch those criminals and discovered that they stole mattresses through a collapsed fence to access the camp.
“We discovered that some market women have started coming to the camp to buy rice and food items distributed to displaced persons.
“We also discovered that some women who claimed to be lactating mothers went out to borrow babies from outside to be able to access the camp when they discovered that the first set of people we attended were pregnant women and lactating mothers.
“When these so-called lactating mothers were asked to breastfeed their babies, we discovered that there was no milk coming out of their breast,” the commissioner said.
