Boko Haram: 90,000 Northeast Residents Eat Insects, Grass to Survive

Catholic Diocese of Maiduguri disclosed on Sunday that more than 90,000 displaced North-easterners now had to subsist on grass and insects to survive while hiding from the terrorists.

“A good number of those trapped around the Cameroonian borders are gradually finding their way into Maiduguri. Rev. Fr. Gideon Obasgie, director of information of the church, said.

“Counting their ordeals, some will tell you how they fed on grass and insects. A group from Pulka community alone buried over 80 children, who took ill in the bush and died.”

He also cried about the 14 parishes that had been disintegrated in the area, with 20 priests displaced and some church members still searching for their family and loved ones in Maiduguri and Yola.

“As a church, we are really going through a severe moment of persecution," he said. "Our ecclesiastical circumscription has faced a sharp disintegration.

“For now, the situation is still as before. No improvements whatsoever since our people are still displaced and have no much hope of getting home.”

He noted that the church had spent over N3m on all internally displaced persons at different locations in Maiduguri, explaining that this church took to this because it “must bear witness to the Gospel both in word and in deed.”

Obasogie said the visit to the IDPs was “a practical show of that authentic witnessing. They had over 200 sacks of maize, rice, cooking oil, blankets, mosquito nets, rubber buckets, mats, cartons of Maggi, beans, sugar, among others”.

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