How Christians And Muslims Promote Peace In This Refugee Camp
ABUJA, Nigeria — When Geoffrey Bitrus became the chairman of the Wassa Internally Displaced Persons Camp in 2014, one issue he set out to tackle was the division between Christians and Muslims. At the time, Bitrus said that when people and organizations donated food to the camp, the displaced people would request that the items be immediately divided between Christians and Muslims.
This kind of sentiment, Bitrus said, has the potential to create an atmosphere of hatred and division within the camp. “
As far as we are together, it is not good to divide ourselves,” he said.
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To address the issue, Bitrus said he devised a strategy. He first gathered the residents of the camp and reminded them that they are all in the camp because of insecurity that forced them out of their homes. He then educated them on how division and discrimination in the camp could lead to hatred and violence.
In order to manage the affairs of the camp effectively, particularly in food distribution, Bitrus divided the camp into eight clusters, including all 1,422 households, integrating Christian and Muslim families into each cluster.
“Each cluster has its own leader. If I receive food items in my office, I will call all the leaders in the eight clusters, divide the items by eight, and each leader will share the food according to the households in their cluster. So every household in the IDP camp gets [food],” Bitrus told Religion Unplugged. “Thankfully, it has been working since then, and nothing like religious differences. We have been living together peacefully.”
Wassa IDP Camp is the largest in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, accommodating over 7,000 displaced people from 12 northern states — about 70 percent of whom are women and children, according to Bitrus.
Bitrus said the displaced people fled insecurity to settle at the camp in February 2014. Nigeria is currently facing many security challenges, and several armed groups with varied reasons operate in the West African nation. Northern Nigeria, where the displaced people fled from, has endured attacks for decades. In the country’s northeast, for example, Islamist militia has been waging an insurgency since 2009, alongside its splinter group, Islamic State West Africa Province. The insurgency has resulted in thousands of deaths, and millions of people have been displaced.
The escalating insecurity has resulted in a displacement crisis and stirred up anxiety among Nigerians, particularly those in the Wassa IDP camp, who are among the over 3.5 million Nigerians who have been displaced internally.
Bitrus said he understands the volatility of the security situation in the country, and so he works to ensure the people stay united regardless of their religious differences. Already, the country is deeply divided along ethnic and religious lines, and thousands have died in violent conflicts involving Christians and Muslims.
These violent attacks claimed the lives of 16,769 Christians and 6,235 Muslims between October 2019 and September 2023, according to the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa.
An infamous example is Plateau State, where decades of struggle for land rights, herder-farmer disagreements, and political divisions between indigenous people and settlers have remained major reasons for the violent clashes between Christians and Muslims.
Meanwhile, Yahya Imam, professor of Islamic studies at the University of Ilorin, argued that Muslims and Christians have been living together for many years in the country and that “the current crisis we are facing is a product of several factors such as ignorance on the part of practitioners of religion in the sense that they don’t actually know what their religion preaches.”
He added that both religions preach peace, but that “people [now] do things outside the norm.”
‘We live peacefully here’
Bitrus said the camp has, for years, maintained the culture of celebrating with one another during the holidays. During Christmas, Christians share food with Muslims and Muslims do the same during Eid al-Adha, also called Sallah locally.
“But it was not like that before. We now understand each other,” Bitrus added.
This understanding has guided 39-year-old Adama Ibrahim since she arrived at the camp in 2014 from Borno state, “hotbed” of the Boko Haram terror group. Since then, Ibrahim said living with her Christian neighbor in the same building has been peaceful and has helped her appreciate more the beauty of unity as they rely on each other for assistance.
“We live peacefully here. If my Christian neighbor does not have the ingredients to cook, she borrows from me, and I do the same when I don’t have them. Any help at all, we offer each other,” she said. “For me, I believe in peace. It is important to live together regardless of religion. I have been here [the camp] for years; I can stay even more with my Christian neighbor.”
Ibrahim said living peacefully with her Christian neighbor not only fosters social harmony but also teaches her children the importance of embracing peace and coexisting peacefully with people of other faiths.
“My children see the way we live with our Christian neighbors. That will instill in my children how to live in peace with people regardless of their religious or ethnic background,” the mother of six said. “They will also learn and grow up to tolerate one another.”
Ruth Paul, Ibrahim’s Christian neighbor, agreed. Paul said her Muslim neighbor is no longer a stranger but a “family member” whom she eats with and has important conversations with.
“We do everything together,” the 29-year-old mother of four said. “The only thing we don’t do together is worship. If it’s time for church, my family and I go to the church, and she goes to the mosque with her family.”
Bitrus said he’s encouraged by the people’s accommodating spirit. It was exactly what he envisioned in 2014, and today, he is happy that the step he took has yielded the desired result.
“All of us suffer together, and we live peacefully,” he added. “The model I designed has been working. Now the people see themselves as one. If other people from other parts of the country adopt this, there will always be peace.”
Ekpali Saint is a freelance journalist based in Nigeria and regular contributor to Religion Unplugged.