Maiduguri, Nigeria:Isha sits with her granddaughter in this make-shift settlement in Maiduguri. Members of her family were killed as they fled violence and her home was burnt down. Credit: OCHA/O. Fagan.
18 August, 2016 - Nigeria’s north-east region is undergoing a humanitarian crisis due to prolonged conflict, continuous violence wrought on civilians by Boko Haram, and counter-insurgency measures to combat the terror. Over the last six years, more than 2 million people have fled towns and villages across Adamawa, Borno, Gobme and Yobe states as their homes and farms were razed to the ground. For the third consecutive year, fields remain unplanted, and hundreds of thousands of people are trapped in inaccessible areas without food, water and basic health services.
People who managed to flee went towards Borno’s state capital, Maiduguri, and moved in with host families, placing a huge strain on the local population. The city’s population was once 1 million but now tops 2.4 million. This huge surge of people is comparable to the entire population of Sweden’s capital, Stockholm, fleeing to Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen.
The burden on the host communities is colossal. Households that would normally comprise between seven and 10 people are now hugely overcrowded, sometimes with up to 80 people living in a tiny space.
Not everybody who fled was fortunate enough to have relatives in the city: approximately 700,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) are now living in either official IDP camps or ad hoc sites scattered throughout the city, often in extremely poor conditions. When people flee their homes, they generally expect to return in just days or weeks. In reality, they usually cannot return for years, sometimes decades, due to factors including ongoing conflict, the destruction or occupation of homes of origin, and the fear of continued harassment, discrimination or attacks. Some IDPs find solutions on their own, often with the help of host families.
The situation in Maiduguri sees host families and IDPs sliding into poverty. Their assets have become depleted and there is little hope for self-reliance. Addressing the long-term needs of IDPs and the communities who host them now requires new approaches and close collaboration between humanitarian and development actors.
The kindness of strangers
One ad hoc site was set up in Maiduguri’s New Prison district when a local property owner and businessman, Baba Kura Al Kali, stepped in to lend a helping hand to his fellow Nigerians fleeing for their lives.
“I am a very lucky man,” Baba told OCHA. “Allah (God) has provided well for me, and now it is His wish that I contribute to helping those who need it.”
Standing outside his garage, which is attached to 5,000 m2 of land, he began a conversation with Bulama Khalli, whom he noticed outside. Bulama was the head of Mandarei, a village some 35 kms from Maiduguri that was once home to 5,000 people. “I had never met this man in my life,” said Bulama. “He asked me if I was displaced, and when I told him what had happened to my village, he invited us onto his land.”
More than 1,855 people from Mandarei village are now housed in make-shift shelters on Baba’s land, along with another 1,200 people from other areas. One of those people is 53-year-old Isha. Originally from Bama, she fled from Boko Haram violence, bringing her daughter and granddaughter with her. Some of her family members, including some of her children, were killed by Boko Haram.
“We are here for one year now,” she said. “I am married over 40 years, but now that my husband has left the town to go and look for work and food, we have nothing.”
At the entrance to Baba’s site, four men were working on a borehole to provide water for the residents. However, the land needs proper drainage, and there are fears that the unsanitary conditions will cause an increase in waterborne diseases, such as typhoid and watery diarrhoea, leading to fatalities. Baba requested the humanitarian community’s assistance, and shelters were provided for the residents. Many of those residents are farmers, but they fear violence and cannot return to the land to plant crops.
The humanitarian community is working hard to keep track of the host communities’ needs. The traditional lean season, which runs from August to October, normally sees food shortages. But with fields now lying fallow, hunger is exacerbated and malnutrition rates are rising. The food shortage means prices are rising by as much as 300 per cent, leaving many families foraging for grass to boil for meals.
The World Food Programme is now registering families around Maiduguri using biometric technology, which enables them to receive food vouchers. Mobile phone company, Airtel is contracted to transfer ₦17,000 per month (US$53) for each registered family. This is the cost of the average food basket based on a family of five to eight people.
World Humanitarian Day was commemorated on 19 August—a time to celebrate the community members who often serve as first responders and are frequently the unspoken heroes. The world needs more of people like Baba Kura Al Kali. He not only sees the needs of his fellow country women and men, but he is prepared to go beyond empathy and actually serve those needs, despite the personal cost. On World Humanitarian Day, we salute Baba and recognize his contribution to humanity.
More than 65 million people have been forcibly displaced worldwide, 40.8 million of whom are displaced within their own country. They had no choice but to leave their homes due to armed conflicts or violence.
http://www.iom.int/news/humanitarian-needs-escalate-nigeria-over-two-million-internally-displaced
Nigeria Humanitarian Needs Escalate to Highest Crisis Level with Over Two Million Internally Displaced
IOM distributes non-food items (NFIs) in Maiduguri, Borno State, northeast Nigeria. Photo: IOM/Muse Mohammed
8/23/16 - In Nigeria alone, over 2.2 million people are internally displaced, including many living in temporary sites without basic services, where conditions fail to meet the most basic standards. Numbers are growing rapidly as aid agencies gain access to more areas.
IOM has so far provided humanitarian support to nearly 325,000 people in northeast Nigeria through provision of non-food relief items, shelter, psychological first aid, camp coordination and camp management (CCCM) and training to meet SPHERE minimum standards in humanitarian relief.
But it needs significantly more financial support to continue to provide shelter, displacement tracking and biometric registration, camp management and psycho-social help for people affected by the crisis.
IOM leads the shelter and CCCM cluster, together with the Nigerian Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). Its Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM), implemented in close collaboration with the government, is the principal tool through which essential data on displacement levels, locations and conditions are collected, analyzed and shared.
Significant resources have been mobilized over the past 18 months with steps taken by IOM to deploy additional technical experts in the area of shelter, camp management and displacement tracking.
Economic disruption caused by ongoing violence has left millions in a situation of acute food insecurity, prompting the Nigerian authorities to declare a food and nutrition emergency in Borno state, where most of the internally displaced are located. Women, children and the elderly are at particular risk.
Conditions in the region have now deteriorated to a point where it now meets the criteria required to activate Level 3 emergency status, the highest level of humanitarian crisis, according to IOM Director General William Lacy Swing.
“The Level 3 Emergency Response will initially be for six months and will apply to IOM’s relief operations in Nigeria, and related activities carried out in neighboring countries. We hope that this will result in a better resourced and more coordinated response to this major humanitarian crisis,” he said.
IOM Nigeria Chief of Mission Enira Krdzalic said: “The condition of internally displaced people in the northeast is still very precarious. The majority are women, children and the elderly. They are exposed to harsh living conditions due to large scale destruction of their houses and farms by Boko Haram, as well as acute food shortages and lack of medical services. IOM will not abandon these people and we are appealing to the donor community for help. IOM will continue working with Nigerian authorities not to abandon these people and we are appealing to the donor community for help.”
OCHA – UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Извор: WUNRN – 24.08.2016
