In Benue State, an Early Warning System Is Helping Communities Feel Safe Again
In Benue State, an Early Warning System Is Helping Communities Feel Safe Again
Christiana, a community member from Yelwata, where the PROTECT tool is being used to report threats in real time. © UNHCR/Paruto Media
Abuja, Nigeria
In Benue State, home to nearly 500,000 forcibly displaced people—the second-largest displaced population in Nigeria—repeated attacks and clashes continue to uproot families and expose communities to grave risks. Between January 2024 and August 2025, more than 270 attacks against civilians were recorded across the state, with over 880 people killed in 2025 alone. In 2026, 76 people had been killed by August.
For years, systems meant to protect people — community alerts, government monitoring and humanitarian protection networks — have often worked in silos, overstretched and too slow to prevent harm. Too often, alerts were raised without reaching those able to respond.
PROTECT — the Protection Risk Observation, Tracking, Early Warning and Coordination Tool — helps close that gap by turning community reports into real-time, geo-referenced, colour-coded alerts that connect directly to first responders, enabling authorities to assess risks and act within minutes. With Nigeria Humanitarian Fund support, the system is scaling up in Guma and Makurdi LGAs. It is currently the only functioning community-based early warning and response system of its kind in Nigeria — turning information into action without creating a costly parallel system.
"Now we feel safer"
Few communities have known devastation like Yelwata's. In June 2025, the village was the site of one of the deadliest attacks Benue has witnessed: armed assailants killed more than 200 people in a single night, burning homes and driving out families yet again. For those who stayed, or who found their way back, the memory of how slowly help arrived that night, and how little time there was to react, has never faded.
Christiana is one of them. She still carries the pain and sadness of that day. But since community members in Yelwata began using PROTECT, she says something has changed — not only in how incidents are reported and followed up, but in how safe she feels. “Now we feel safer."
In Tatyough, a farming community that has weathered wave after wave of insecurity, Michael spent three years living away from home before he felt it was safe enough to return with his family. Before, he says, they felt isolated, but now he knows the situation is being monitored.
Michael returned to his community in Tatyough after three years away, and says PROTECT has helped him feel that the situation is being watched over.
The people behind the alerts
Behind every alert is someone who chose and was trained to pay closer attention and report. Across Guma and Makurdi, community members move through their neighbourhoods every day, watching for the small signs of danger that outsiders might miss, and reporting what they see. It is quiet, constant work — and it has changed how they see their own role in keeping their communities safe.
For Mary*, one of the trained PROTECT community members, "PROTECT has served as the eyes of the community" . "Now I have a clear channel. I know my report becomes a case, and that case becomes a response through the right channels." For Mary, that channel has changed more than her workload — it has changed how seen and heard her community feels by the authorities she reports to.
John*, a community member from Yelwata, says “PROTECT is a wonderful innovation. The Situation Room at the PROTECT Data Centre is active 24 hours a day. When you send a signal, you receive an immediate response.”
Analysts at the PROTECT Data Centre in Makurdi track incoming alerts and coordinate a rapid response with government partners.
Strengthening the systems that already exist
While other early warning and early response systems generate valuable information, the critical difference is what happens next: PROTECT is designed to trigger a response. By ensuring that alerts and reports reach the authorities responsible for action in real time, the system helps close the gap between identifying a protection risk and responding to it.
Angela Omirigbe, a state government official involved in the LGA-level response, says the tool has reshaped how authorities engage with displacement-affected communities. “The PROTECT Centre has provided reliable, evidence-based data and has informed decision-making,” she said. She also confirms that PROTECT has strengthened coordination and improved the government’s response, and that the system can easily be expanded to new LGAs across Nigeria.
That low cost is precisely what makes PROTECT sustainable. It is not a parallel system demanding heavy new investment — it builds on structures that already exist, which is also what makes it possible to expand quickly.
As insecurity continues to drive displacement across Benue State, UNHCR and its government partners see PROTECT as more than a pilot. It is a model for a simple idea: when a community's warning reaches the people who can act on it in time, lives are saved.
Names of some community members have been changed to protect their safety.
