Urgent aid needed in Lake Chad basin

THE UN’S top humanitarian official in the Sahel region has appealed for international solidarity with millions of people in urgent need of help in Africa’s Lake Chad basin.

“I wish I had good news, but I don’t,” Toby Lanzer, the Humanitarian Co-ordinator for the Sahel, told a news conference at the UN in New York on Monday that was largely focused on the crisis affecting Lake Chad basin countries, which include Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria.

“Eleven million people are in desperate need of humanitarian aid – 7.1million of them are severely food insecure. They are living on the edge,” he noted.

Lanzer added that among them, the situation of children is particularly worrying. Some 515000 children are severely malnourished and their lives are at risk if aid does not reach them urgently.

“This is a clear case where international solidarity with the governments of the region is needed.” – ANA