Maiduguri, Nigeria – Four months after authorities evacuated 22,000 people and dismantled its water supply, the Muna displaced persons camp in Maiduguri is a shell of what it once was. But Maryam Suleiman, a 50-year-old widow, has refused to leave.
Suleiman and her 12 children still sleep beneath leaking roofs of the camp in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno State, even as the structures crumble around them.
“They gave us options to stay or return home,” the mother tells Al Jazeera, standing in what remains of the site that housed her family for a decade. “But they’re still killing people there.”
Her hometown of Dongo in the Mafa local government area – 49km (30 miles) from Maiduguri – is where Boko Haram fighters murdered her two younger brothers in 2014. It is also where the government insists she must return, declaring the area safe from the group that has killed 15,889 people and displaced 3.9 million across northeastern Nigeria.
Suleiman is among hundreds who refused evacuation when Borno State Governor Babagana Umara Zulum ordered all camps closed in 2023, citing improved security and the need to “restore dignity” to displaced populations.
Yet in May 2025, just months after resettlement began, Boko Haram launched fresh attacks in Marte, killing five soldiers at a military base. Similar incidents followed in Dikwa, Rann, Gajiram, and other “safe” communities.
According to the Daily Trust newspaper, more than 90 people have been killed in the past five months across Borno State. The Marte attack alone forced 20,000 newly resettled residents to flee again.
“I remember those days, our community was rich in agricultural produce,” Suleiman recalls of life before 2009, when Boko Haram began its violent campaign against Western education. “People from Maiduguri travelled to our community to trade. I can’t recall visiting Maiduguri because I had everything I wanted in my village.”
The armed group’s violence escalated after Nigerian forces killed its founder, Mohammed Yusuf, in 2009. His deputy, Abubakar Shekau, unleashed attacks on civilians, infrastructure, and security forces that would reshape Nigeria’s northeast for the next decade.
Now, in the skeletal remains of Muna camp, Suleiman shares a single room with 15 people. Her children, once enrolled in school, no longer attend classes.
“We hardly eat unless we go out in search for food,” she says. “The government and NGOs removed everything when they closed the camp.”
A dangerous return
Donoma Gamtayi, an elderly farmer from Marte, watches from the camp’s crumbling entrance as military vehicles pass on the road to his hometown.
“Boko Haram still operates,” he tells Al Jazeera. “They come once in a while. When they kidnap, they demand ransom – sometimes up to two million naira ($1,337).”
Like many in the camp, Gamtayi wants to farm again, but not at the cost of his life.
“If security forces are placed in the affected communities, we will have confidence to survive in resettlement areas. We can spend some hours in safe locations.”
Nigerian security analyst Kabir Adamu believes there is merit to the government’s drive to get people to return to their regular lives, but warns that the present security setup still makes villagers vulnerable, especially outside major towns where the military has formed garrisons.
“Sometimes they’re forced to pay ransom to Boko Haram or Islamic State West Africa Province fighters,” he says.
This creates a devastating cycle. Those who engage in such acts are, in effect, supporting “terrorism” in the eyes of the state and risk arrest by the Nigerian government. Yet for many, it is the only option they see for survival.
Governor Zulum justified the camp closures by citing rising prostitution, gangsterism, and child abuse within settlements for internally displaced persons (IDPs).
“Living in IDP camps is not what we are used to or what we like as a people,” he stated. “We believe that a safe life of dignity is a right for all citizens of Borno.
“Boko Haram can never be eradicated without resettlement. People have to go back to their homes and earn their livelihood.”
But humanitarian workers paint a different picture. In August, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned that 4.5 million people in northeastern Nigeria need humanitarian assistance, half of them children.
“In Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states, 2.5 million children are at risk of acute malnutrition,” says UNICEF Nigeria representative Wafaa Elfadil Saeed Abdelatef. Although Borno is the epicentre of the Boko Haram insurgency, the other two states have also been targeted by fighters. “Families are skipping meals, children are wasting away, and mothers are arriving at feeding centres with babies hanging between life and death,” Abdelatef says.
From January to June this year, UNICEF and its partners reached 1.3 million people with health services, treated 340,000 children for severe acute malnutrition, provided 185,000 people with safe water, and supported more than 500,000 out-of-school children in returning to classrooms in northeastern Nigeria, according to Abdelatef.
She noted that while these are lifesaving results, “the reality is that needs are rising faster than the response, and more must be done collectively”.
Trapped between fear and hunger
The complexity of forced returns extends beyond immediate security threats, Adamu notes.
“Food scarcity is a major issue in resettled areas due to destroyed agricultural systems and limited humanitarian aid,” he says. “Places like Dikwa and Monguno have extremely high malnutrition rates.”
Psychological trauma compounds the crisis. Many displaced people have endured severe distress during years of displacement, and resettling them without adequate psychosocial support only worsens their mental state, making reintegration nearly impossible.
“When IDPs are resettled without proper advocacy with host communities, it leads to conflict over land, water, and economic opportunities,” Adamu adds. “We’ve seen this in Pulka, where there’s fierce competition for limited resources.”
Garba Uda’a, another camp resident, tells Al Jazeera that life in Muna has become much like it was when people first arrived, with no means to start a business or farm.
“We were left behind after the resettlement exercise,” he says. “Yes, we are afraid, but they should support us no matter how little, because we don’t have anything.”
He explains, “The farming season has already passed for us to plant anything that could sustain us. We remain here because the economic situation in the country is not making it easy for us.”
For now, Suleiman has made her choice. If the government will resettle her somewhere else – anywhere safe – she will start a provisions shop, she says. She knows how to run a business, how to support her family.
But not in Dongo. Not where her brothers’ blood still stains her memory. Not where Boko Haram fighters still emerge from the forest to collect their terrible tax.
As dusk falls over Muna camp, she prepares the floor where her children will sleep tonight. The roof may leak, the toilets may not work, and hunger gnaws at their stomachs.
But they are alive.
“Until news of bloodshed sounds strange in our ears,” she says, “we will stay.”
