At Least a Million Nigerians Cut Off From Aid Due to Insecurity

UN Nigeria coordinator Matthias Schmale has said that in Nigeria, “more than U.S.$1 billion is needed to help millions of people in the country’s troubled northeast”. A million Nigerian citizens are living in areas that are cut off due to insecurity.

Schmale said that over 2.2 million people remain displaced due to recurring attacks in the region and that one million are in areas designated as “hard to reach” or inaccessible to aid workers. 

These areas are still largely controlled by armed militant groups, including Boko Haram, who have been waging a war in the northeastern states of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe for twelve years.

For more than a decade, the northeast has been subjected to relentless attacks by deadly groups such as Boko Haram and the Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP).

At least 1.4 million children under the age of five years are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition in the coming years, as a result of the ongoing insurgency crisis by non-state armed groups, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has said.