Crisis triggered by Boko Haram ‘worsening’

The humanitarian crisis triggered by Boko Haram’s “violent and inhuman campaign” is worsening, with 10.7 million people in need of aid in northeast Nigeria and parts of Cameroon, Chad and Niger, the U.N. humanitarian chief said.

Stephen O’Brien told the U.N. Security Council that although Boko Haram has lost much of the territory it once controlled as a result of military campaigns in the region, its raids and suicide bombings targeting civilians are still causing widespread death and destruction in those four countries which comprise the Lake Chad Basin.

Over the past 12 months, he said, the crisis has grown “in dramatic fashion,” with the number of people needing humanitarian help, rising from about nine million in July.

Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft urged the Security Council to visit the Lake Chad Basin region in the coming weeks to shine a spotlight on the depth of the crisis, stressing that it is not only humanitarian but also about politics, development and “countering terrorism.”

“What started as a protection crisis,” O’Brien said, “has become also a major food and nutrition crisis — today one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world.”

He said a year ago, three million people across the Lake Chad Basin were “severely food insecure,” meaning they had very little to eat and needed assistance. “Today there are 7.1 million,” despite the response of the U.N. and its partners, he said.

In addition, some 2.4 million people are displaced, including 1.4 million children, O’Brien said. And in northeast Nigeria alone “over 7,000 women and girls have been subjected to Boko Haram-related violence.” /