UN provides $1bn humanitarian aid for 1.6m IDPs, 6.2m malnourished in Nigeria

The United Nations has announced a three-year refugee assistance of Humanitarian Response Strategy to Nigeria to reinforce the Nigeria Regional Refugee Response Plan. The UN projection of $983 million appeal will provide support for millions of victims of Boko Haram terrorism in northeast Nigeria and hundreds of thousands of refugees who fled to neighboring countries.

It was highlgithed that the sumt of $848 million from the appeal fund will be disbursed to support 6.2 million vulnerable people in Nigeria’s north-eastern states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe where the Boko Haram insurgency was most affected.  

The UN record shows that Boko Haram killed over 20,000 people and forced more than two million to flee their homes in their struggle to establish Islamic State governed by Shariah laws.

The Media aide of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Jens Laerke, noted that a recent upsurge in violence has displaced more than 80,000 civilians who have sought refuge in crowded camps or in towns in Borno State.

“In total,” added Laerke, “1.8 million people are internally displaced in the northeast due to this protracted crisis which is characterized by massive abuses against civilians including killings, rape, abduction, child recruitment and burning and pillaging of homes and entire villages.”

It was also indicated that Food aid accounts for nearly one third of the appeal; while fund will also be used to provide special treatment for some 370,000 severely, acutely malnourished children, for nutrition, health, water and sanitation projects among others.

The U.N. refugee agency and U.N. Development Program are launching Nigeria’s Refugee Response Plan.The agencies are appealing for $135 million to assist more than one-quarter million Nigerian refugees displaced by the worsening Boko Haram insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin region.

The appeal will assist Nigerian refugees in Cameroon, Chad and Niger.Beyond supporting those forced to flee, money also will help the communities hosting the refugees as they themselves are living below the poverty line and are in dire need of aid.