Oru Refugee Camp: Nigeria
Oru Refugee Camp. Oru, Ogun State, Nigeria. 2008 figures show that over 3000 people live in Oru Refugee Camp. These people are originally from many countries on Africa: Liberia, Sierra Leone, Central Africa Republic, Congo, Erytrea, Côte-d’Ivoire, Togo, and more.
Some of these people have lived there for twenty years, children born in this time have known no other home. integration into Nigerian society has proved difficult leaving the refugees feeling ostracised and persecuted.
The camp clinic closed in 2005 and since then health in the camp has dramatically deteriorated. Without contraception HIV/AIDS has spread and many more children are born into the abject poverty. Without a regular income many daughters are forced into prostitution to bring home money for food for their parents and siblings.
Education and training is a fundamental need to allow the refugees to make choices about their future and let them earn an independent living. This is why the work of RESPECT International is so crucial in this and many other refugee camps. These camps are supposed to be temporary homes for refugees and offer little or no facilities for people. But if given no other alternative the people are stuck there and the camps will only get bigger thereby increasing the scale of an already serious problem.
Thanks so much for sharing this information…always such a tragedy to hear stories like these but on the flip side, great to know that RESPECT is taking real steps to improve the conditions. Would love to hear more about the development of your work in Nigeria!
Is there any way to confirm a person is in this Oru camp? I might be dealing with a scam? Looking forward to a reply.