Red Cross, NCFRMI partner to provide healthcare for refugees in Kano

The Nigeria Red Cross Society (NRCS), and National Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI), have collaborated to provide healthcare services to refugees in Kano State.

READ ALSO: Diphtheria: Red Cross donates medical consumables in Kano state

The NRCS Secretary General, Abubakar Kende, disclosed this at a meeting with representative of the refugees in Kano, said the collaboration on the medical outreach was to motivate refugees across the state.

“We have agreed to partner to provide basic healthcare services to get treatment for free,” Kende said.

He said that the Red Cross would make the payment available and provide basic needs at the primary healthcare as their contributions to the partnership.

Kende said the society had in the past five years been able to manage and provide healthcare services and support to over 70,000 refugees in Nigeria on behalf of the United Nations.

“Instead of refugees to reduce globally, it is increasing due to incident happening across the globe.

“In 2023, we agreed with the United Nations to see how we can make similar operation to support refugees,” he said.

The NRCS secretary general said that millions of work was currently on-going to combat issue of violence at the international levels.

“These people are first migrants, and nobody loves to leave his or her country, but migration is making life difficult due to its challenges to adopt in another country,” he added.

Kende appealed to the general public to be peacemakers and ones brother’s keeper.
Similarly, the Coordinator, NCFRMI, Hajiya Luba Liman, said the health issues of refugees should be treated through primary healthcare services.

“We have selected some specialists and teaching hospitals for the partnership, while we also empower them to be able to fend for themselves,” she said.

Liman disclosed that the refugees have been in Kano since 2014 living in various places.

One of the representatives of refugees from Central Africa, Idris Ibrahim, thanked the Nigeria Red Cross and state government for their kind gesture.

Ibrahim decried the high cost of house rent and pleaded for government support to assist them with residential houses.