The Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Nigeria’s North-East Region

Abstract

Spurred by the unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and its spread to
the northeast, an environment already devastated by the Boko Haram insurgency, the article looks
at its impact on internally displaced persons (IDPs). It analyses data gathered from secondary
sources and systematically juxtaposes these with reports and observations of developments in the
IDP camps in the region. Major findings revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic had significant
impacts on IDPs in the study area concerning their health, particularly by worsening the challenges
of access to water, sanitation and hygiene, humanitarian relief, food security, and further escalating
insecurity in the region. The findings further revealed that while the government’s preventive
measures helped to curb the rapid spread of the virus among the IDPs, the Boko Haram group
and its affiliates exploited the lockdown to attack some communities and security forces in the
north-east. In the process they killed and displaced more people than the COVID-19 pandemic
in the region. This article concludes that the complex challenges presented by the COVID-19
pandemic as well as the already existing humanitarian crises require the synergy of efforts by
federal, state, and local governments with the active support of humanitarian actors, particularly
international organisations and non-governmental agencies working in the region to mitigate
the impacts of COVID-19 on IDPs. It also underscores the urgent need for additional funding,
allocation of land to build new camps to decongest the existing ones, and deployment of additional
medical personnel and supplies to cater for the IDP camps in the north-eastern states of Nigeria.