Adamawa State accounts for about 3,000 of the estimated 17,000 Nigerians still missing following insurgency and other conflicts across the country, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has disclosed.
The organisation released the figures on Wednesday in Yola ahead of the International Day of the Disappeared, observed annually on August 30.
According to the ICRC, most of the documented cases are linked to insurgency-affected communities in the North-East and other areas experiencing conflict.
The latest figure represents a decline from the 23,659 missing persons recorded by the organisation last year.
However, the ICRC stressed that the lower figure does not mean that the affected families have found closure, as thousands continue to search for information about their missing relatives.
The Protection of Family Links Delegate at the ICRC Mubi office, Emeline Montel, said the figures were drawn from cases documented by the organisation as part of efforts to trace missing persons and restore contact between families and their loved ones.
Montel spoke during a sanitation exercise, street cleaning, remembrance and awareness campaign organised by families of missing persons with the support of the ICRC in Yola.
Participants used the event to highlight the difficulties faced by families who have spent years without knowing the fate of their relatives.
They said many of those missing were young people and family breadwinners, leaving their families to deal with emotional trauma as well as financial hardship.
A member of the Association of Families of Disappeared Persons, Habiba Mustapha, said four of her relatives remained unaccounted for after disappearing from Gwoza in Borno State.
Mustapha, who was displaced to Adamawa, said the prolonged uncertainty had affected her family’s finances and the education and welfare of its children.
The ICRC continues to assist affected families in tracing missing relatives and working with relevant authorities to establish the whereabouts of those still unaccounted for.
