UN humanitarians issued an alert on Tuesday over the deteriorating situation for millions of mainly women and children in northeast Nigeria who continue to be affected by protracted armed conflict, just as the country enters the lean season.
The “enormous challenges” faced by the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno, which include a continuing terrorist insurgency, need to be recognized by the international community to create what the UN Secretary-General has called a “state of hope and a state of reality”, in a region which he said did not live up to its reputation for “terrorism, violence, displacement or despair.”
Amid reports that Cameroon is forcing several thousand Nigerians to return to Borno state in the country’s crisis-gripped north-east, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) deplored the move, saying it has put lives “at risk”.
After fleeing terrorist attacks, as well as clashes between Government forces and militia, more than 2,000 newly displaced Nigerians have arrived in an already over-stretched camp known as Teacher’s Village, in Maiduguri, the capital of the country’s Borno State.