11 million people needs humanitarian assistance in Northeast
By Tada JUTHA, Maiduguri
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA) has said that 10.6 million people need humanitarian assistance, as hunger looms among children and mothers in the Northeast.
The 12-year conflict has killed over 40, 000 people with destruction of property worth $9.2 billion (N3.42 trillion) in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe (BAY) States.
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UN-OCHA raised the alarm in a snapshot released, yesterday in Maiduguri, Borno state, disclosing that; “About 2.8 million people were displaced from communities during the over decade Boko Haram insurgency in the Lake Chad region and Sambisa Forest.
Besides displacement of persons, the snapshot lamented that 400, 000 children are currently suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps and host communities.
“The ban on the distribution of food and non-food items in resettled communities by the Borno State Government could trigger hunger among IDPs,” warned the OCHA.
Some of the 7, 911 IDP returnees; are also gripped with fears to return to their ancestral homes in Abadam, Monguno, Marte and Guzamala Local Government Areas.
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The returnees comprising 70 percent of women and children lamented that they could not travel a kilometre from the council headquarters.
“Our wives and children cannot fetch or draw firewood and potable water since we were relocated from Bakkasi camp to Gwoza council headquarters,” said Buba, while lamenting insecurity in communities, including Ashgashiya, Kirawa, Agapalawa, Attagara, Uvaha and Khuhum, a border settlement with Cameroon.
