₦airaland Forum

Urgent funding
is needed to keep thousands
of people alive in Boko
Haram-hit northeast Nigeria,
the UN said Monday,
stressing that the situation
borders on famine and
compares to crises in Darfur
and South Sudan.
Aid agencies have been
warning increasingly of food
shortages in hard-to-reach
areas of Borno state, while
one NGO said last week some
inaccessible parts could be
suffering from famine.
Toby Lanzer, the UN's
regional humanitarian
coordinator for the Sahel,
including the Lake Chad
basin, said progress had
been made in recent years,
as the Islamists lost control
of territory.
But he said he was
"horrified" by the condition
of people on a recent visit to
the town of Bama, adding
that the situation in Dikwa
and Monguno towns was
"equally as worrying".
"I have worked in many,
many places -- Central
African Republic, Darfur,
South Sudan -- and the
condition of people in very
rural parts of Borno state is
as bad as I have ever
seen," he said.
"It is an acute emergency,"
he told AFP by telephone
from Cameroon.
Lanzer said $220 million (200
million euros) was needed for
the next 10 weeks "for the
purposes of keeping people
alive".
Nigeria, whose revenues
have been hit by sustained
low global oil prices, does
not have the resources to
cope and cannot do much
more, he added.
- Starving to death -
International NGOs have
faced difficulties accessing
places such as Bama, which
is some 70 kilometres (45
miles) from the Borno state
capital of Maiduguri, because
of roads still prone to
ambush and attack.
The medical charity Doctors
Without Borders (MSF) said
last month at least 188
people had died mainly from
diarrhoea and malnutrition at
a camp in the town since
June 22.
AFP was told in early June at
least 10 people were
starving to death every day
at a camp in Banki, 60
kilometres from Bama, and
that 376 people had died in
three months.
Meanwhile, the UN children's
fund UNICEF said 250,000
children under five risked
severe acute malnutrition in
Borno this year and if
nothing was done, 50,000
could die.
Lanzer said a UN team had
managed to go to Banki from
Cameroon three days ago
but access was still a
problem.
"The condition of people is
awful. There are dozens of
people dying daily of
malnutrition... Our
assessment is there are
15,000 people and five of
them are dying daily as we
speak," he added.

csamii:
From getting killed by boko haram to dying of starvation! Wetin concern me

The gods of 1967-1970 decided to visit them in 2016 through buhari.

apcisevil:
I thought they lied that the north feeds the entire nation. Why can't they feed themselves first before feeding those they love to hate? Devilish parasites