The National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, has urged humanitarian agencies working in the North east, to focus more attention on the communities that have been liberated from Boko Haram Insurgents in order to provide succor for the people returning to their homes.

The call was made by Mohammed Kanar, the North east Zonal Coordinator of NEMA during a humanitarian coordination meeting organized by the agency in conjunction with the Borno State Emergency Management Agency, BOSEMA, on Wednesday.

Kanar said it appeared that a lot of focus is being centred on the people living in Internally Displaced Persons, IDP, camps to the detriment of those who are in host communities as well as newly liberated towns.

He noted that there are 52 humanitarian organisations presently in the North east, comprising mostly of international agencies, with all concentrating on IDP camps.

He also said that it was only about 500,000 persons, out of the 2,093,036 IDPs in Borno State, who are residing in camps, as others reside within the Maiduguri metropolis and liberated towns.

Kanar said that at present, the camps are already well covered but the same cannot be said about the other communities where even larger numbers of people live, as there have been reports of humanitarian crises in some of the areas.

He however admitted that some of the humanitarian partners have started making inroads into the host communities and newly liberated communities, but said that much needed to be done.

He said the major agenda of the meeting was to deliberate on how to scale up efforts at arresting humanitarian crisis in the host communities and the newly liberated towns, promising that NEMA will boost its activities in eight council areas of the state that are most affected by the Boko Haram crisis.

The eight councils include: Gwoza, Gamboru-Ngala, Mafa, Bama, Askira-Uba, Konduga, Maiduguri Metropolitan Council and Jere.

The meeting was attended by representatives of all the humanitarian agencies working to cater for citizens of Borno State, the worst-hit by the Boko Haram insurgency.