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.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list“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. Th …
