23,000 people missing in Nigeria – Humanitarian Affairs Minister Betta Edu declares

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu, disclosed on Wednesday that 23,000 people have been reported missing in less than a decade due to the effect of insurgency in some parts of the country.

Edu stated this in Abuja at a stakeholders’ engagement with the theme “Where are you now”, to mark the International Day of the Disappeared.

The minister noted that the figure represented half the number of missing people in the whole of Africa.

Edu further disclosed that the report of the missing people was released by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Nigerian Red Cross Society (NRCS) as a result of the insurgency in some parts of the country.

“Today, over 23,000 persons are still missing.

“However, it is likely that this is just the tip of the iceberg as a more efficient mechanism is needed to improve the reporting and forensically trace cases of missing persons,” she said.

She also described the issue of missing persons as one of the most critical and long-lasting humanitarian consequences of armed conflicts that needed sober reflection.

Edu promised that the Tinubu administration was committed to curbing the issue, hence the need to facilitate and strengthen the legal frameworks that would substantially address the incidences of disappearance.