---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: IRIN <[email protected]> Date: Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 2:11 AM Subject: Your daily selection of IRIN Africa English reports, 6/5/2015 To: Elisabeth Janaina <[email protected]>
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humanitarian news and analysis
Table of contents
1. Beyond Boko Haram: Nigeria’s hidden crisis <#14dc65342b770e0d_1>
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*Beyond Boko Haram: Nigeria’s hidden crisis
<http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=101599>*
[image: lead photo]NAIROBI, 5 June 2015 (IRIN) - The Nigerian government’s
focus on its war against the Boko Haram insurgency is obscuring a growing
humanitarian emergency.
The violence has driven at least 1.5 million people from their homes in the
three conflict-affected northeastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe. The
vast majority have been taken in by friends and relatives in the main
cities, but the hospitality has imposed a significant burden on their hosts.
“People are stressed. People are tired. Things are very difficult,” said
Mustapha Zannah, a lawyer in the region’s largest city Maiduguri who at the
beginning of the year was sheltering one family and has since added four
more.
The insecurity has disrupted farming and markets across the northeast, with
an inevitable impact on food availability. Between July and September,
areas of southern Yobe, central and northern Borno, northern Adamawa and
greater Maiduguri will face “emergency” levels of food shortages, one step
below famine, according to the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Network (FEWS
Net
<http://www.fews.net/west-africa/nigeria/food-security-outlook-update/may-2015>
).
The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has reported
<http://reliefweb.int/report/nigeria/humanitarian-bulletin-nigeria-issue-01-april-2015>
projections of more than three million people in need. Nigeria is also the
breadbasket for neigbouring countries, and a poor harvest will have a
knock-on effect for the traditionally food insecure Sahelian region.
*Ring the alarm*
“It’s a really scary assessment. Even if people get access to their fields
there are no seeds, and there is drought in some areas. We could be looking
as far as September 2016 before food security normalises,” Sarah Ndikumana,
country director of the International Relief Committee, told IRIN.
“We need to be ringing the alarm bell,” said Elizabeth Rushing, West Africa
analyst at the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. “There is an urgent
need to scale up the humanitarian response.”
Despite the military’s recent successes against Boko Haram, people are
still on the move as a result of continuing, guerrilla-style attacks. Most
are heading to the relative safety of Maiduguri, which is hosting 592,000
internally displaced persons (IDPs) – one-third of all IDPs in the north.
“Should the roads open up, there would be a rush to Maiduguri,” said
Ndikumana. “The reality is that Boko Haram is far from defeated.”
<http:///Photo/Details/201502100718490374/IDPs-in-Maiduguri-host-communities-are-stretched>
Photo: Obi Anyadike/IRIN <http://www.irinnews.org/photo/>
IDPs in Maiduguri - host communities are stretched
Roughly 90 percent of all IDPs are staying within the community rather than
the 42 sites run by the National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA). The
agency is struggling
<http://nigeria.iom.int/sites/default/files/dtm/01_IOM%20DTM%20Nigeria_Round%20III%20Report_20150429.pdf>
to provide even minimum support to those in its care. While the majority of
IDPs receive food rations, the sites – often public buildings, like schools
– are overcrowded and lack proper sanitation and health services.
The problem is not one of resources – Nigeria is after all a middle-income
country – or a lack of good intentions: NEMA simply lacks the experience
and capacity to handle a crisis of this magnitude, aid workers say.
The United Nations and the big international NGOs, which do have the
skills, have been largely absent from the northeast. “The international
community has been dragging its feet since the beginning,” said Rushing.
“The response to the crisis has been slow and fragmented.”
Boko Haram changed its tactics in July last year from hit-and-run attacks
to holding territory. In the areas the jihadist group controlled, the
damage to infrastructure has been immense – from health posts to bridges
and wells. “In some areas, the destruction is 80 percent,” said NEMA
spokesman, Sani Datti.
*Taking a chance*
He denied allegations that Nigeria’s previous government, eager to show it
was winning the war and concerned that Boko Haram may have infiltrated the
cities in the guise of IDPs, had pushed people to return home. “We can’t
tell people to go back when there is nothing there,” he said.
“I don’t know the plan of the new government, but all returns should be
voluntary and secure,” said Stephanie Daviot, displacement matrix tracking
project officer for the International Organization for Migration.
In areas where the conflict has eased, such as Adamawa State, some people
are preferring to take the chance of returning to their communities rather
than endure the frustrations of squatting in an IDP camp or the compound of
a relative, with little opportunity in either case to earn an income.
“But even though some areas are now calmer, we still see [Boko Haram]
incidents, and some areas still have landmines,” Daviot told IRIN. A
humanitarian assessment is planned in all three states on 22 June,
involving the UN and NEMA, under military escort.
President Muhammadu Buhari won an election victory in March on his
perceived ability to defeat Boko Haram, and the promise of a Marshall Plan
for the northeast. “How you prioritise humanitarian needs with security
needs is a key question,” said Ndikumana.
For Zannah, the lawyer in Maiduguri who also runs a school
<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Future-Prowess-Islamic-Foundation-School/234044826662800>
for orphan children, “the government is only talking about security,
leaving people to wallow on their own. Nobody is talking about IDPs or
trying to understand their problems.”
oa/ag
Access report online <http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=101599>
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