Boko Haram survivors in Bulturam community, Gujba local government of
Yobe state have said they now live in better houses than before.
Narrating their ordeals to Blueprint correspondent in Yobe, the survivors said they were attacked in 2015 and the whole of the community was razed down overnight.
“On that fateful day, the insurgents came in a hirlux vans and started
shooting sporadically, some of us run into bush others killed. As you
can see all the houses have been razed down and the community became
desolate,” Ba’ana Mustapha, one of the survivors said.
Blueprint in North-east on a fact-finding mission to the community with
a distance of about 45 kilometers from Damaturu, the state capital
reports that the Yobe state community and Social Development Programme (CSDP) had constructed 30 blocks of two bedroom in the community and Boko Haram survivors are gradually returning.
However, the community is yet to have access to portable drinking water,
health, educational facilities among others.
According to most of the returnees, “We want to come back. There is no place like home. Though living here has some challenges but we do not have other options,” Abubakar Malami said.
In a chat with the General Manager of the CSDP, Goni Baba Gana said
as part of their recovery projects to the vulnerable persons, the
survivors organszed themselves in groups and they were supported with
95 per cent of the construction cost, the beneficiaries contributed
the remaining five per cent in cash or kind.
Bulturam is one of the communities that ventured into farming,
livestock rearing and had a population of over 3,000, before the
attack of the Boko Haram insurgents which forced many to abandon their community and flee to relatively peaceful areas.
Blueprint in North-east also gathered that 80 of the similar houses were
constructed in Kukareta.
Other communities that benefited from the project were Buniyadi, Bunigari, Nyekire, etc.
