Lake Chad Basin Map |
A 2017 report from
the United Nations (UN) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA) Nigeria has pointed out that about 7 million people
across the Lake Chad basin struggling with food insecurity need
assistance.
The report also revealed that more than 1.8 million people in the north-east Nigeria are food insecure at emergency levels.
As humanitarian
strategy focused on addressing immediate needs through life-saving
assistance, the UN sought for concerted engagement of political,
development and security organizations to help stabilize the region and
create conducive conditions for people to survive and prosper.
The UN stated that
farmers were unable to attend to their fields having missed harvests for
three consecutive seasons adding that 11 million people are in urgent
need of humanitarian assistance within the region.
"Across the region,
almost a third of the population is struck by food insecurity;
malnutrition rates and related mortality are critically high"
The UN also noted
that millions of people have limited or no access to basic services such
as water, healthcare and education saying that humanitarian bodies
significantly increased their response capacity in 2016.
"With constant
growing needs, especially in north-eastern Nigeria, further operational
scale-up and financial resources are urgently required to ensure
adequate response".
This is even as the
report stated that Boko Haram's attacks and military counter-offensives
have displaced 2.3 million people saying that majority of the displaced
are sheltered by communities who are among the world's most vulnerable.
"In north-eastern Nigeria alone, 1.8 million people are internally displaced and more than half of them are children".
It noted that about 200,000 people have fled across borders and lived as refugees in the neighboring countries.
The report also
disclosed that Lake Chad Basin is grappling with complex humanitarian
emergency that have affected about 17 million people across
North-eastern Nigeria, Cameroon's far North, Western Chad and South-east
Niger.
It further
emphasised that the combined impact of deepening insecurity, rapid
population growth and severe vulnerability resulting from the effects of
climate change, environmental degradation, poverty and underinvestment
in social services has translated into recorded numbers of people in
need of emergency relief.
While noting that
over 2.3 million people have fled their homes, UN lamented that the
protection strategy highlighted by governments of Nigeria, Cameroon,
Chad and Niger in the Abuja Action statement of June 2016 remained an
ongoing challenge.
"Violence and
insecurity have disrupted trade and markets while vital infrastructure
such as health centres, schools, water pipelines, bridges and roads have
been destroyed".
At the 22nd edition
of Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Morocco, President Muhammad
Buhari had called for an urgent need to resuscitate Lake Chad saying
that the shrinking of the lake is currently affecting the lives and
livelihood of more than 5 million people in the region.
He added that the shrinking contributed to insecurity in the region, including the emergence of Boko Haram.
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