Benue State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) has distributed about 20,300 relief items to internally displaced persons.

Chairman of SEMA, Emmanuel Shior, stated this on Tuesday in Makurdi while addressing journalists at its monthly flag-off of relief material distribution to IDP camps.

Mr Shior listed the items distributed to include: 3,500 bags of rice, 800 bags of beans, 3,000 cartons of noodles, 1,800 bags of garri, 600 bags of salt, 600 cartons of Maggi and 10,000 tubers of yams.

He said similar relief items would also be distributed in Otukpo, where there were more than 8,000 IDPs and in APA, with at least 10,000 IDPs.

Mr Shior noted that there were recent attacks on the people of Otukpo, APA and Guma LGAs, with 60 people killed at Otukpo and APA and 40 during the Guma invasion.

“The number of deaths was given to us by the chairmen of these local governments, who are the chief security officers of their respective LGAs.

“This development has added to our burden of taking care of displaced persons in the affected local governments,” he said.

The SEMA chairman pleaded with the Federal government to help the state government end all the killings in the state so that the IDPs could return to their homes.

(NAN)