IDPs Seek Help For Children Orphaned By Herdsmen Attack

A 35-year-old nursing mother of six whose husband was killed by armed herdsmen, Hembadoon Tarhemba, has slumped and died in an internally displaced persons (IDPs’) camp in Benue State.
She was taking refuge at the IDPs Camp in Abagena after her husband’s demise.

The immediate past women leader of the camp, Esther Oota, told LEADERSHIP in a telephone conversation that Hembadoon, who was a lactating mother of an under-one-year set of twins, went to fetch firewood at a nearby bush with two other women to prepare breakfast for her children and in the process of breaking the firewood she slumped and all efforts to revive her failed.

Esther lamented that as a lactating mother, the deceased left the house in the morning to enable her fetch the firewood and come back early to cook for her children but did not return alive as she desired.
She said the corpse of the deceased was still in the morgue and the set of twins are with her little children and an IDP foster mother in the camp who are struggling daily to feed.

It was also gathered that one of the twins was named after the governor, a boy named Alia, and a girl Mimidoo, because their mother gave birth to them on the day of Governor Hyacinth Alia’s swearing-in.

The deceased, according to Esther, came from Tse Uhembe, Yogbo in Mbagwen following the herdsmen attack in the area that claimed her husband Tarhemba and stayed in the camp for the past seven years.

An eyewitness who visited the family of the deceased at the camp to assist them described the condition of the set of twins as pathetic.

He said they were weak and pale and appealed to the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) not to allow Alia and Mimidoo to die due to 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 groups to come to the aid of the children Hembadoon left behind as orphans, especially the twins Alia and Mimidioo without further delay,” he said.

Efforts to speak with the SEMA boss, Sir James Lorpuu, on the government’s plan for the children and burial arrangement for the deceased proved abortive as his information officer said his boss travelled to Jos, Plateau State.