By Franca Ofili
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has called on government and other authorities to ensure safe corridors for humanitarian services to be extended to conflict-raved communities in Adamawa.
Ms Francesca Piccin, Head of Sub-delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), made the call during a visit by a delegation of ICRC to Madagali, one of conflict most affected communities in Northern Adamawa.
Piccin noted with concerned that humanitarian consequences of the conflict were coming back to Madagali due to its border with Southern Borno.
“We had a lot of security incidents, a lot of attacks from the non-state armed groups which meant that many of the communities and the civilians living around here are coming to Madagali for one thing or another,” Piccin said.
Piccin said that they were in the area to engage the locals on better ways to improve healthcare and nutrition in some communities in Mubi.
“In Madagali since 2014, that the non-state armed groups took over this town, destroyed almost everything. It has been very challenging for all the communities around here, though we reopened access to Madagali health facility in April 2024,” she said.
According to her, ICRC has been working with the communities and trying to support the civilians, especially women and children to get access to basic services, health and food.
She said that the group constructed water tower with the water tanks and renovated the centre.
“It is part of the project that we are starting to implement now. We are supporting the primary healthcare centre in Madagali. And the structure of the centre is really old and badly damaged,” Piccin said.
According to her, another project established was ‘Tom Brown’ where women especially nursing mothers are being trained on how to cook nutritional valued food supplements.
Piccin said that the aim of Tom Brown was to prevent malnutrition in children, saying that prevention is better than cure.
She said that the local food items such as soya beans, millet, maize, ground nut, moringa were prepared for the healthy growth of the children.
“We renovated the centre, enhancing the facility’s capacity to provide essential medical services to the community.
“This renovation is part of the ICRC’s broader commitment to supporting healthcare infrastructure in regions affected by conflict or crisis,” she said.
According to her, the group is constructing a new primary healthcare centre with the support of the community, saying on completion, the centre will have boreholes and solar-powered electricity.
“The community leaders facilitated the process of acquiring the land where we will construct the centre and the construction will start soon, hopefully, it will be finished by the end of this year,” Piccin said.
Also speaking, Mr Musa Adhas, the Chairman, Ward Development Committee, Madagali,
said that Red Cross had done a lot for the community especially in the area of health.
According to him, the volunteers were paid N5, 000, but the Red Cross increased their stipends which improved their activities.
He said that due to the population of the community, a bigger centre now accommodating more persons was constructed by the Red Cross.
“The Red Cross has taught our women how to ensure our children are healthy by introducing Tom Brown. We now have women club, practice hygiene and farmers are giving farm materials to easy farming,” he said.
Adhas thanked the Red Cross for bringing live to the community and called on the government to come to their aid as the conflict had affected their families and businesses.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that women were seen learning how to prepare Tom Brown and some accessing treatments at the centre.
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