DAVID ADAMS reports…
More than 25,000 deaths. More than 2.5 million people displaced from their homes in the Lake Chad Basin region of Nigeria since mid-2013. As many as 4.7 million people across north-eastern Nigeria, and areas in Chad, Niger and Cameroon who don’t have enough to eat. More than 900 schools destroyed in Nigeria’s Borno State since March.
Such figures – published by independent humanitarian news service IRIN – paint a picture of the toll terrorist group Boko Haram are taking on Nigeria and surrounding nations as they continue to wage an insurgency across west and central Africa.
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DISPLACED: As of March, 2015, Minawao camp in Cameroon was hosting some 33,000 Nigerian refugees, mainly originating from Borno state. PICTURE: © UNHCR/H Caux “Nigerians displaced by Boko Haram have relatively little help and find refuge where they can. Some walk hundreds of miles into neighbouring Chad, Niger or Cameroon. The majority remain as internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Nigeria, coalescing in and around cities like Maiduguri, reliant on the kindness of friends or extended family to get by, or crowded in school campuses converted into unsanitary IDP camps.”– IRIN report, Fleeing Boko Haram: Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide |
They are contained in a new report – Fleeing Boko Haram: Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide – which looks at the impact the conflict with Boko Haram is having in the region, particularly since the intensification of the conflict in 2014.
It points out that around four times that number of migrants and refugees that have arrived in Europe so far this year – more than 2.5 million people – have been displaced from their homes in the Lake Chad Basin since May, 2013, as a result of the conflict with as many as 90 per cent of those displaced ending up “hustling out an existence” in Nigeria’s poor urban centres still located within the conflict zone, rather than living in a camp for displaced people.
“In Europe, Syrian refugees with the means head for their country of choice, armies of aid workers and volunteers helping them along the way,” IRIN contributors write.
“In West Africa, Nigerians displaced by Boko Haram have relatively little help and find refuge where they can. Some walk hundreds of miles into neighbouring Chad, Niger or Cameroon. The majority remain as internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Nigeria, coalescing in and around cities like Maiduguri, reliant on the kindness of friends or extended family to get by, or crowded in school campuses converted into unsanitary IDP camps.”
IRIN says that with food production once again affected by the conflict this year, food availability is now at “crisis levels”.
The report contains the stories of numerous people who have been affected by the conflict. They tell tales of incredible hardship with the violence inflicted by Boko Haram – murders, kidnappings and sexual abuse – with the conflict even reaching into the camps for displaced people. Several camps have had to be evacuated due to bombings and while security personnel have been deployed to camps, there are suspicions that Boko Haram militants may have disguised themselves as IDPs to deliver bombs.
While the tide appears to be turning against Boko Haram who the military have pushed back from territory they claimed last year, Ferdinand Ikwang, the head of the Office of the National Security Advisor’s de-radicalisation program, told IRIN that they fact Boko Haram continue to set off bombs – including in Maidguri where the population has doubled in size – and conduct surprise attacks, means it’s far too early to say “mission accomplished”.
As recently as Wednesday this week – 13th November – some 25 people were reportedly killed during a Boko Haram attack on a village in southern Niger and subsequent clashes with the military. Meanwhile a day later, the Nigerian army announced it had rescued more than 60 people – mainly women and children – held by Boko Haram in north-eastern Borno State. This followed the rescue – in late October – of more than 330 people, according to the military.
Christians are among those suffering at the hands of Boko Haram. Reverend Samuel Dali, president of EYN, recently told the World Watch Monitor that more than 8,000 of his church members have been killed in the violence while more than 700,000 of its more than a million members displaced from their homes and are now scattered in places like Jos, Abuja, Kaduna and Yola. Some 15,000 others have sought refuge in neighboring Cameroon.
The Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari, has reportedly given his military commanders until the end of the year to defeat the rebels.
Formerly part of the UN, IRIN was relaunched this year as an independent, non-profit organisation.
To see the full report, see http://newirin.irinnews.org/fleeing-boko-haram-nowhere-to-run-nowhere-to-hide/
