Three persons were confirmed dead and 3,600 others displaced as fire ravaged an internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp in the Customs Area of Maiduguri.
Hajiya Yabawa Kolo, the Director General of the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), made this known to newsmen in Maiduguri on Wednesday.
She explained that the first incident occurred very early in the morning, while the second incident occurred in the afternoon at about 2 p.m., razing down about 600 shelters, adding that the incident also affected food items.
She said that the cause of this might have stemmed from a cooking fire that grew out of control in one of the tents.
She expressed concern about what she described as a recurring fire incident in camps that had affected many families.
“We recorded such incidences in Gajiram where 338 households were affected,” Kolo said.
She said that the agency and other key partners had adopted a proactive modality to mitigate recurrence of such incidences, through advocacy and sensitisation in the camps.
Kolo said that the agency and other partners would provide food and other necessary items to the affected families to reduce their suffering.
