The United Nations has described the humanitarian crisis caused by Boko Haram in the Northeast as the most severe in the world today, with 7.7 million people still in severe need of humanitarian assistance in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States alone.

Speaking at a press conference Saturday in Maiduguri after their officials visited humanitarian projects at IDPs and returnees locations at Bama and Ngom, Bama and Mafa local government areas of Borno State.

UNDP Programme Administrator, Achim Steiner, and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mark Lowcock, complained that the humanitarian crisis in Nigeria’s Northeast has now spilled over to other countries in the Lake Chad region.

“Food security and the nutrition situation remains extremely fragile across the Northeast, particularly given the high levels of aid dependency, compounded by the lack of access to land or other livelihood opportunities,” the two UN officials complained.

“Up to 3 million people are estimated to suffer from critical food insecurity. Almost a million children aged 6 months to 5 years are acutely malnourished, with 440,000 facing Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM),” they revealed.

The visit of the UN officials follows an international donor conference held in Berlin early last September during which international donors pledged US$2.5 billion for humanitarian, stabilization and recovery projects CTS in the Lake Chad region.

At Bama, they observed with grief that the IDPs population there had swollen to 27,000, with 250 arriving the Bama camps yesterday alone, saying that hundreds of IDPs arrive Bama daily.

At Ngom, they witnessed the return of 327 families to their homes, with their children now going to school.

•Sourced from Daily Trust report

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