Borno State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) has dispatched a search team to work with security operatives to rescue the over 200 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), who were abducted while searching for firewood in the Gamboru Ngala LGA.
The director general of the agency, Dr Barkindo Saidu, who disclosed this to Daily Trust on Thursday, said they could not declare the IDPs abducted until a claim is made by their abductors.
He said the agency’s search and rescue team would support security operatives to rescue them.
“Technically, as a professional body, these people were not abducted until a claim of abduction was made by someone or a group.
“We know that some people are missing, and we are trying to find out. If they are abducted, what are the reasons or demands of the abductors? And from there, we will declare that they are abducted to see how we can rescue them,” he said.
He said the state government has supplied food items to the families of the missing IDPs.
Saidu also confirmed the destruction of the housing units by Boko Haram insurgents in Dikwa town, saying only a single block was destroyed completely; the rest were partial.
Borno State governor, Babagana Umara Zulum, said the state government was yet to get an official report on what happened to the IDPs.
The governor disclosed this when a delegation of ambassadors led by Richard Montgomery, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, paid him a visit in Maiduguri on Thursday.
“We are yet to get an official report. Nobody knows what had happened among them. I believe we have those that willingly went to the bush,” he said.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has called on security agencies to rescue the abducted IDPs.
The call followed a motion by Rep. Zainab Gimba (APC, Borno) during plenary on Thursday.
