The Benue State government yesterday raised the alarm that criminals, lactating mothers, people from host communities, and market women have infiltrated the Yelewata IDP camp located at the Makurdi International Market for displaced persons.

The State Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Mr. Aonduwaser Kunde, disclosed this while clarifying issues from journalists at the camp.

Mr. Kunde alleged that the said criminals on Friday night forced their way into the camp and stole some non-food items, while the market women invaded the camp buying off food items distributed to the displaced IDPs.

He said: “There have been issues in the camp for the past two days, and we discovered a lot of infiltrators in the camp, and immediately launched an investigation after the protest and discovered that criminals and people from the host community in Makurdi were behind the protest.

“So we resolved that we have to be at the camp by 4 am today (Saturday) to fish out those criminals and discovered that they stole mattresses, they used the area where the fence collapsed to access the camp.

“We discovered that some market women have started coming to the camp to buy off rice and food items distributed to displaced persons.

“We also discovered that some women who were claiming to be lactating mothers went out to borrow babies from outside to be able to access the camp when they discovered that the first set of people we attended to were pregnant women and lactating mothers.

“When those so-called lactating mothers were asked to breastfeed their babies, we discovered there was no milk coming out of their breasts,” Kunde explained.

The Commissioner, however, stated that 50 fake displaced persons have also been arrested.