The International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) has dewormed more than 200,000 cows across three Local Government Areas of Nasarawa State.
The local government areas are Awe, Keana and Wanna with plans to do same in Nasarawa LAG.
Dr. Usman Baba, the Veterinary Field Officer (FO) of Jos-Sub-delegation of the organisation, disclosed this to newsmen on Friday at Jangwa community of Awe LGA of the state.
He explained that ICRC is a humanitarian organisation that is independent, non political and impartial, whose mandate includes rendering assistance to people affected by crisis without discrimination.
Baba said that the organisation had supported people in Nasarawa State affected by crisis with food, seedlings and farm inputs as well as animal health-related activities such as deworming and vaccine to livestock farmers.
He said that the targeted cows were those of herdsmen displaced due to clashes in Benue, Plateau and Taraba.
The Field Officer also said that the team from the organisation was carrying out the exercise in Awe, Keana, Nasarawa and Wamba LGAs bordering the three states.
Baba explained that ICRC was collaborating with the Nasarawa State ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources to ensure healthy animals in the state.
Similarly, Patience Nanklin-Yawus, Communication Field Officer of ICRC, Jos Subdelegation, said the organisation since 2018 had assisted a lot of victims of communal violence in Nasarawa State.
Nanklin-Yawus said that the Jos sub delegation office of ICRC was working in all the states of North-Central zone of the country.
The Communication field officer said the organisation had various interface with the victims in Nasarawa State to ascertain their areas of needs with the view of assisting them with relief materials to restore their means of livelihood.
She said that the present exercise was part of plans lined up to assist and restore the livelihood of the livestock farmers affected by crisis.
She said that ICRC had trained 30 Fulani people in the state as Community Animal Health Workers in National Veterinary Research Institute, Jos, as part of efforts to restore their means of livelihood and maintain peace.
She said that the Community Animal Health Workers who were trained to render health services to animals were drown from Wamba, Keana, Awe and Nasarawa LGAs respectively.
Nanklin-Yawus gave the breakdown of the people empowered to render health services to animals from the four LGAs as: Wamba, four person; Keana, six; Awe, 10; and Nasarawa, 10 people, respectively.
She disclosed that the organisation had also assisted pastoralists in over 5,000 households within the four LGAs with improved rice, maize, sorghum and soya beans seedlings.
Responding on behalf of the beneficiaries Alhaji Idrisa Bahagu and Alhaji Ibrahim Yarinono expressed gratitude to ICRC for the gesture and appealed to other individuals and groups to emulate the organisation. (NAN).
