By Jennifer Y Omiloli
At least 140,000 people have been displaced in Borno State this year as a result of the revival of Boko Haram violence, UN Undersecretary-General Mark Lowcock said.
Mr Lowcock, who oversees UN Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, visited Nigeria on an official visit this week that took him to Maiduguri, the base of the Boko Haram insurgency, from where he undertook an assessment of the situation in the North-East.
He spoke through a statement issued by the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs Coordination (UN-OCHA).
Mr Lowcock acknowledged the efforts made by the Nigerian authorities and other bodies to regain control of areas previously devastated by the insurgents “between 2016 and 2018,” which helped more than two million displaced people return home.
“But renewed violence, most of it perpetrated by Boko Haram insurgents, has sparked an upsurge in forced displacement in Borno, with more than 140,000 people forced to move this year alone,” he said.
“Many farmers have missed multiple planting seasons and more than three million people are food insecure.”
Mr Lowcock said Boko Haram and other non-state armed groups had devastated communities in Borno through a ten-year conflict and violence.
“In my visits to Borno on September 2017 and October 2018, I met many of the ordinary people who have been the victims of this crisis,” he recalled.
“More than seven million people currently need humanitarian assistance in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states.”
The UN official acknowledged that though “military and security measures against the insurgents are a crucial and valid part of the response led by the Nigerian authorities, such action needs to be proportionate and avert amplifying to the hardship of civilians, huge numbers of whom have suffered terribly as a result of the actions of the terrorists and insurgents.”
