26 years old inmate killed by colleague 5 months after wedding
10 children die after drinking contaminated water

By Magnus Eze

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Day in day out, gory and pathetic tales emanate from the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), where people from mainly Gwosa and Bama in Borno State who survived the ferocious attacks of Boko Haram insurgents are taking refuge.
The latest of such bad news was the killing of Ishaya Joshua by another inmate of the Durumi, Area 1 camp, named Sadik Hamman, a.k.a Azango.
Joshua, 26, since arriving the camp in 2014 had tried his hands in various ventures including operating commercial motorcycle popularly referred to as okada, until recently, he raised some money, rented a farmland in Nasarawa State cultivating beans and maize.
Not inclined to wanting the displacement to be a permanent set back, Joshua who had looked forward to a bountiful harvest from his beans farm, it was gathered he had earlier in the year proposed marriage to a female inmate called Grace. They consummated their marriage on May 25 at the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) within the camp.
Trouble actually started Saturday, November 12, when Hamman indicated intension to sell his fairly used telephone and Joshua declared interest to buy it.
According to one of the inmates, Joshua had priced the phone N4,000, which infuriated Hamman, who immediately attacked the former for under-pricing the phone.
Other inmates of the camp had settled the misunderstanding between two of them, and thought the matter was over.
It was a big shock to everybody there when Hamman on seeing that Joshua turned back to leave the scene and he allegedly carried a car jack and hit him on the head. Joshua slumped on the spot with blood gushing from his head.
He was rushed to Asokoro General Hospital by other IDPs where he was confirmed dead by the doctors. His remains were also interred same day at the Apo Cemetery after obtaining the necessary police clearance.
When Daily Sun visited the camp on November 15, his young widow, Grace was said to have joined Joshua’s mother in Mararaba for them to go and inspect the deceased’s farm in Nasarawa. The farm which was the family’s only hope of livelihood was reported to have been destroyed by some herders.
Elder brother of the late Joshua, Dogara told our reporter that they were yet to overcome the devastation caused by the unfortunate incident. He disclosed that their father, who is a refugee in Cameroun was yet to be informed of what happened.
When contacted, Secretary of the camp, Mr. Bala Yusuf, said he has officially informed the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the National Humana Rights Commission (NHRC) of the incident, explaining that was the only thing they could do under the circumstance.
It was reliably gathered that the suspect, who was originally detained at the Force CID, Area 10, Garki has been transferred to the SARS, at the old abattoir and may be charged to court accordingly.
FCT Command spokesman, Anjuguiri Manza could not confirm the incident when called on telephone as he said he was yet to be briefed.
Harvest of deaths in Wassa camp
Meanwhile, it has been harvest of deaths as at least ten children have been confirmed dead in a diarrhoea outbreak at the IDP camp at Wasa in Waru ward of the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC).
Executive Secretary of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Primary Healthcare Development Board, Dr. Rilwanu Mohammed, who confirmed the development to national daily said the outbreak in Wasa IDP camp may have been caused by a contaminated stream where the children and other displaced persons drank from.
According to him, “They have been drinking from the stream. There are two boreholes in the camp, but because they have to pay a token of N20 for maintenance to fetch from there they avoided the place. The water from the stream where the children went had been contaminated by animals which drink from there.”
“The water source has been purified with chlorine gas,” he stated.
However, the Chairman of Wassa camp, Mr. Hamman Bukar told Daily Sun that the situation has been brought under control after intervention by the health authorities.
He lamented that over 5,000 inmates of the camp are left to live without any health facility, stressing that the last time the people had access to health outreach was in March, when Speaker Yakubu Dogara in a well-publicised event brought a company that came and mounted a cabin tagged ‘mobile clinic’ there.
Bukar, who reasoned that the death rate would have been curtailed if there was a functional clinic in the camp, appealed to the government, corporate bodies and well-meaning people to come to their immediate aid by providing a generator to enable them power the motorised borehole in the camp.
He wondered how displaced persons who live on charity would be expected to raise money and pay anytime they want to fetch water, noting that the issue of water and sanitation was very pressing in the camp.
Our investigations revealed that lack of money and public health facility coupled with the inaccessible farm road have left the IDPs at the mercy of a local medicine dealer in the community, who they call ‘Doctor’.
Their hope and prayer is that help would come their way before another bout of epidemic visits them.