The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said an estimated 17,000 Nigerians who went missing, mostly after attacks in insurgency-troubled parts of the Northeast and other conflict zones, are still unaccounted for.
The update was given on Wednesday, ahead of this year’s commemoration of the International Day of the Disappeared, which is observed annually on August 30.
The latest figure is a decrease of about 6,000 from last year, when the ICRC reported that 23,659 missing persons were being sought by their families.
Emeline Montel, the Protection of Family Links Delegate at the ICRC Mubi office, said during an event in Yola that about 3,000 of the missing persons were from Adamawa State, giving the latest figure.
Montel clarified that the figures were based on cases recorded by the ICRC, which helps families trace missing relatives and reestablish contact where possible.
She addressed journalists during a public sanitation exercise, street cleaning, remembrance and awareness campaign organized by relatives of missing persons and supported by the ICRC as part of activities leading up to the August 30 International Day of the Disappeared.
Relatives of missing persons who took part in the exercise said the community clean-up was also intended to draw attention to the plight of thousands of families whose lives had been torn apart by the disappearance of loved ones.
They said many of the missing were breadwinners and young people who vanished while trying to build their lives.
Habiba Mustapha, a member of the Association of Families of Disappeared Persons who took part in the street cleaning in Yola, said the fate of four of her relatives was still unknown.
Habiba, a Gwoza indigene of Borno State displaced to Adamawa, said the disappearance of her relatives had subjected her family to prolonged emotional and economic hardship.
“The loss of my relatives is a continuous source of emotional stress and economic hardship. Some of the missing were the breadwinners. Our children are out of school. “Look at me here in a totally new environment,” she said.
