Breastfeeding Mother Slumps, Dies In Benue IDP Camp

A 35-year-old mother of six whose husband, Hembadoon Tarhemba, was killed by gunmen, and taking refuge at the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) Camp located at Abagena, Benue State, has slumped and died.

The immediate-past woman leader of the camp, Esther Oota, told LEADERSHIP in a telephone conversation that Hembadoon, a lactating mother of under one-year-old twins, went to fetch firewood from a nearby bush alongside two other women to prepare breakfast for her children when the incident occurred.

The deceased was in the process of breaking the firewood when she slumped and all efforts to revive her by some members of the camp who rushed to the scene proved abortive.

Esther lamented that the deceased widow left the house in the morning to enable her to collect firewoods to come back early and cook for her children, but did not return alive as she desired.

The former woman leader told our correspondent that the corpse was still lying in the morgue while the twins were left with the deceased’s little children and an IDP foster mother in the camp who themselves were struggling to feed.

The mother had named one of the twins, a boy, Alia and the girl, Mimidoo, for giving birth to them on the day the state’s governor, Hyacinth Alia, was sworn in.

According to Esther, the deceased came from Tse Uhembe, Yogbo, in Mbagwen following the herdsmen attack that claimed the life of her husband and had stayed in the camp for the past seven years.

An eyewitness, who visited the family of the deceased at the camp to give them assistance, described the condition of the twins as pathetic, saying they were looking weak and pale, even as he appealed to the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) not to allow Alia and Mimidoo to die for lack of attention.

“I want to appeal to the leadership of SEMA and all well-meaning Nigerians, civil society organisations as well as faith-based organisations to come to the aid of the children Hembadoon left behind as orphans, especially the twins, Alia and Mimidioo without delay,” the Good Samarithan stated.

Efforts to speak with the SEMA boss, James Iorpuu, on the incident proved abortive as his aide told our correspondent that his principal travelled to Jos, Plateau State, even as he was neither picking nor returning calls and messages put across to his mobile phone.