7.7m people need humanitarian aid in North/East — UN
NEWS DIGEST–The United Nations (UN) has described the lingering humanitarian crisis caused by Boko Haram in the northeast as the most severe in the world today. It said that about 7.7 million people are still in severe need of humanitarian assistance in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States alone.
Speaking at a press conference yesterday in Maiduguri after their official visits of humanitarian projects at IDPs and returnees locations at Bama and Ngom, Bama and Mafa local government areas if Borno State, UNDP Programme Administrator, Achim Steiner and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mark Lowcock, said the humanitarian crisis in Nigeria’s Northeast had spilled over to other countries in the Lake Chad region.
“Food security and the nutrition situation remains extremely fragile across the Northeast, particularly given the high levels of aid dependency, compounded by the lack of access to land or other livelihood opportunities,” the two UN officials complained.
“Up to 3 million people are estimated to suffer from critical food insecurity. Almost a million children aged 6 months to 5 years are acutely malnourished, with 440,000 facing Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM),” they said.
The visit of the UN officials followed an international donor conference held in Berlin early last September during which international donors pledged US$2.5 billion for humanitarian, stabilization and recovery projects CTS in the Lake Chad region.
They said the IDPs population at Bama had swollen to 27,000 with 250 arriving the Bama camps yesterday alone, saying that hundreds of IDPs arrived Bama daily.
