Tag Archives: Boko Haram

Millions of Nigerians face hunger in wasteland recaptured from fighters

A family is pictured in their straw grass home at the IDP camp at Gamboru, Borno, Nigeria April 27, 2017. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

By Alexis Akwagyiram

BANKI, Nigeria (Reuters) – When he heard that the Nigerian army had declared his family’s home town of Banki free from Boko Haram militants and safe to return, Bukar Abdulkadir did all he could to bring his family back to the place they had fled three years ago.

It took nine months of hunger, selling most of the food rations they received at their refugee camp in Cameroon, to save up for the cost of a two-day journey in a lorry container back across the border into northern Nigeria.

But instead of returning to till the familiar fields of home, they came back to a desolate wasteland littered with the rubble of destroyed buildings and burnt cars, where they were herded into a crowded camp by soldiers.

The once thriving town, which the army retook in September 2015, has been razed to the ground. Along with some 32,000 other homeless inhabitants, Abdulkadir’s family are now confined to the camp amid the ruins, guarded by troops who do not let them out unescorted, officially to protect them from explosives strewn across farmland.

“I can’t provide for my family because I can’t farm,” said Abdulkadir. “If the market opened I could do something to make their lives better,” he added in a voice cracking with emotion as he gazed at his children.

Nigeria’s security forces have succeeded in recapturing most of the territory once held by Boko Haram Islamist militants after years of an insurgency in which civilians were often the targets. But instead of bringing a joyous end to the conflict, the victories have revealed communities gripped by hunger.

Some 4.7 million people in northeast Nigeria depend on food aid, some of which is blocked by militant attacks, some held up by a lack of funding and some, diplomats say, stolen before it can reach those in need.

Millions of Nigerians may soon be in peril if the situation deteriorates, as authorities expect, when the five-month rainy season begins in May and makes farming impossible in areas that are now accessible.

This part of Nigeria is the western edge of an arc of hunger stretching across the breadth of Africa through South Sudan, Somalia and into Yemen on the Arabian peninsula. The United Nations believes as many as 20 million people are in danger in what could become the world’s worst famine for decades.

ALREADY BROKEN

“This camp is already broken,” said a field worker responsible for food distribution to children at the camp in Banki, asking not to be identified while he discussed the conditions endured by residents of the destroyed town.

Three hundred women and children were queuing for water in the scorching sun. Fatima Mallam, a widowed mother of three, said she had to wait five hours. The field worker said that was now normal for the camp. There are only 14 working boreholes to provide water for the 32,000 people.

“When the rainy season comes there is likely to be an outbreak of cholera and other diseases because people defecate in the open,” the worker said.

Lured by news of the army retaking territory lost to Boko Haram, some 152,000 people like Abdulkadir and his family have returned from neighboring Cameroon and Niger since the start of the year, according to the U.N. refugee agency.

But as Boko Haram continues to stage suicide bombings and hit-and-run attacks, most end up in already stretched camps unable to resume farming, the main activity in the northeast.

Thousands of others are arriving in camps daily from parts of the northeast where the army, aided by troops from neighboring countries, has pushed the Islamist militants out of most of the territory they controlled until early 2015.

At another northeastern camp, in Gamboru-Ngala, army units were trying to accommodate a new influx of thousands.

“We only have four nurses and one medical doctor to cater for this number of people so it is not enough to deal with their medical challenges,” said Army Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Omoke.

“There is no secondary health facility in the whole of Ngala local government,” he said. “A lot of people come in – shelter is a major challenge now.”

Aid agencies and military officials say the rainy season, beginning in the next few weeks, will make many roads impassable, increasing the dependence on food aid as farming halts and the movement of goods becomes restricted.

Cesar Tishilombo, who heads the sub-office of the U.N. refugee agency in Maiduguri, a state capital, said up to three million people were at risk of famine in areas recently recaptured from Boko Haram. Aid agencies working in Nigeria faced a funding crisis, he said.

“The pledge has been $1 billion plus. People have pledged but the promises are not translating into cash,” he said, adding that his agency had received just $11 million of the $70 million it had requested.

Western diplomats say corruption and government mismanagement are partly to blame for the failure of aid to reach those in need.

“Nobody knows who is in control,” said one diplomat, describing overlapping systems of authority at the local, state and federal levels that make it difficult to organize aid.

“There is corruption at every level, from drivers up to state and federal government,” said another diplomat, adding by way of example that 12 trucks might leave a depot with food aid and only two arrive at distribution centers to feed the hungry.

A spokesman for President Muhammadu Buhari declined to comment on the assertions of corruption in aid deliveries, but the president has acknowledged that graft is a serious problem hindering recovery in areas recaptured from the militants.

Last month the authorities launched an investigation into allegations that funds allocated to contractors to help rebuild the insurgency-hit region had been misused. The presidency said the investigation was linked to another probe into $43 million in cash found in a flat in the commercial capital Lagos.

(Additional reporting by Felix Onuah and Paul Carsten in Abuja; editing by Peter Graff)

Exclusive: With Nigeria’s northeast facing famine, WFP funds could dry up in weeks – sources

Children attend a class at a primary school in Muna Garage IDP camp, Maiduguri, Nigeria November 7, 2016. UNICEF/Naftalin/Handout via REUTERS

By Paul Carsten

ABUJA (Reuters) – The United Nations’ World Food Programme could in a few weeks run out of funding to feed millions living on the brink of famine in Nigeria, four people familiar with the matter said, intensifying one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises.

In the northeast, 4.7 million people, many of them refugees from the conflict with Islamist insurgency Boko Haram, need rations to survive, according to the World Food Programme (WFP), one of the main aid groups handing out food. Many of those living in camps for displaced people say they already barely get enough to eat.

“With the money they have right now, and if they won’t cut rations, they can only go to May 18,” one person said, citing talks with the WFP, who asked to not be named because they were not authorized to speak to media.

The WFP was “reasonably certain” it would get enough funding to last until late June, the person added.

“All humanitarian crises globally are woefully underfunded and for WFP Nigeria is in one of the worst situations for funding,” a WFP spokeswoman said.

“We are trying to save lives. We need over the next six months $207 million for Nigeria. At the moment the program is 13 percent funded for 2017. It’s extremely low. Of the four countries facing famine it is the least funded.”

The conflict with Islamist insurgency Boko Haram, which seeks to establish a caliphate in Nigeria’s northeast, began in 2009 and shows no sign of ending. It has killed more than 20,000 people and displaced more than two million.

Nigeria’s northeast is now teetering on the brink of famine, aid organizations say, pointing to two years of missed crop harvests in what was once a breadbasket for the country, and the high likelihood of missing a third.

The approaching rainy season increases the risk of disease spreading, especially within camps for the displaced, adding more stress to efforts to respond to the humanitarian crisis.

The wet season also means tens of thousands of refugees are attempting to return home to farm, despite facing serious dangers, saying there is not enough food provided in the camps to sustain them.

CONTINGENCY PLAN

In a meeting on Monday with the WFP in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, donor countries and organizations, criticized the group for not having a satisfactory contingency plan if funding starts to dry up, two of the people with knowledge of the talks said.

The WFP spokeswoman said meetings with donors were genial, open and frank.

“When we are funded and able to get out to the field we are getting to people. This crisis can be averted and we want people to understand this will work if it’s funded. We can avert the famine.”

The U.S. Embassy in Abuja said the U.S. government was working “urgently and cooperatively with our partners in an effort to address the critical humanitarian needs in northeastern Nigeria”.

“There is not adequate funding to sustain the global response to those needs here. Additional resources must be found urgently so that feeding does not stop,” the embassy said in emailed comments to Reuters.

The WFP and donors have also locked horns over who is to blame for the lack of funding reaching the aid organization, with the U.N. agency saying the money promised has not been released to them and donors arguing that basic paperwork still has not been submitted, the two people said.

“There’s a dark cloud hanging over them that they’ll cut rations,” one person said. “It shouldn’t be this way.”

The WFP, along with other groups, has come under fire in Nigeria for its slow reaction to the humanitarian crisis in the northeast, only launching a full-fledged response last year while other aid organizations had been in the country since at least 2014.

On Wednesday, the U.N. children’s fund said its response to the crisis “remains severely underfunded”, a warning echoed by many other aid groups.

The United Nations says it needs $1.5 billion in humanitarian aid this year for the Lake Chad region – which spreads across parts of Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad – and $457 million had been pledged for 2017 by late February.

Despite the Nigerian army saying the insurgency is on the run, large parts of the country’s northeast, particularly in Borno state, remain under threat from Boko Haram. Suicide bombings and gun attacks have increased in the region since the end of the rainy season late last year.

(Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Susan Thomas)

Nigeria in talks to release remaining captive Chibok girls

Campaigners from the #BringBackOurGirls group protest in Nigeria's capital Abuja to mark 1,000 days since over 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped from their secondary school in Chibok by Islamist sect Boko Haram, Nigeria January 8, 2017. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

ABUJA (Reuters) – Nigeria is in talks to release the remaining captive Chibok girls, its president said on Thursday, a day before the third anniversary of the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls by Islamist insurgents Boko Haram.

The kidnapping is one of the most infamous of Boko Haram’s insurgency, now in its eighth year and with little sign of an end. More than 20 girls were released in October in a deal brokered by the International Red Cross. Others have escaped or been rescued but 195 are believed to be still in captivity.

“(The government) is in constant touch through negotiations, through local intelligence to secure the release of the remaining girls and other abducted persons unharmed,” President Muhammadu Buhari said in a statement.

“We have reached out to their captors, through local and international intermediaries, and we are ever ready to do everything within our means to ensure the safe release of all the girls,” he said.

Buhari’s government has repeatedly promised to secure the release of the Chibok girls, and in October the president said efforts would be “redoubled”.

At the time, the presidency also said Boko Haram was willing to negotiate the release of 83 more girls, though none have been let go so far, spurring criticism from campaign groups over the government’s handling of the talks.

Although the Chibok girls are the most high-profile case — triggering a worldwide social media campaign — Boko Haram has kidnapped thousands of adults and children, many of whose cases are neglected, say aid organisations.

The use of kidnapped children as suicide bombers by the insurgents of Boko Haram has surged this year, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Wednesday.

The militants have killed more than 20,000 people and displaced more than two million during their insurgency aimed at creating an Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria.

Despite the army saying the insurgency is on the run, large parts of northeast Nigeria, particularly in Borno state, remain under threat from Boko Haram. Suicide bombings and gun attacks have increased in the region since the end of the rainy season late last year.

(Reporting by Felix Onuah; Writing by Paul Carsten; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Boko Haram video denies claims of starvation in northeast Nigeria forest

KADUNA, Nigeria (Reuters) – The faction of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram led by Abubakar Shekau released a video on Tuesday denying that fighters are dying of hunger in its northeast Nigerian forest base.

Nigeria’s military last week said it was “ransacking” territory it said it had recaptured from Boko Haram in the hunt for Shekau, who leads one of two main branches of the jihadist group. It also said he might be hiding in the Sambisa forest.

Large parts of northeast Nigeria, particularly in Borno state, remain under threat from Boko Haram as suicide bombings and gun attacks have increased in the region since the end of the rainy season late last year.

“There is no food that we lack in this forest of Sambisa. It is not true that we have run out of food supply and that we are being killed by hunger,” said an unidentified man with a rifle, flanked by others carrying guns, in the five-minute video.

Nigeria’s army said in December that it had pushed Boko Haram out of the Sambisa forest, a vast former colonial game reserve that was the group’s stronghold, in an operation to reclaim territory lost to the Islamist insurgency since 2009.

Boko Haram split last year, with one faction led by Shekau operating from the forest and the other, allied to Islamic State and led by Abu Musab al-Barnawi, based in the Lake Chad region.

“We urge all members to be one hundred percent loyal to him [Shekau],” said the man in the video. “It is not true that you killed Shekau,” he said, referring to previous claims by the Nigerian military that he had been fatally wounded.

Shekau did not appear in the video, which was circulated on social media on Tuesday.

Boko Haram has killed more than 15,000 people and forced more than two million to flee their homes during its insurgency aimed at creating an Islamic state governed by a strict interpretation of sharia law in Africa’s most populous nation.

(Reporting by Garba Muhammad; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Andrew Bolton)

U.N. agency worried about forced return of Nigerian refugees from Cameroon

ABUJA (Reuters) – The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday it is concerned about Cameroon forcing thousands of refugees to return to northeast Nigeria, an area struggling with insurgency and facing a potential famine.

UNHCR teams in Nigeria have heard and documented accounts of Cameroonian troops returning refugees against their will, despite an agreement between the two countries that any such returns should be voluntary.

Babar Baloch, UNHCR spokesman, told a press briefing the agency was “particularly concerned” that more than 2,600 refugees, many of whom had fled militant group Boko Haram, had been sent back to Nigerian border villages since the start of the year.

“UNHCR calls on the government of Cameroon to honor its obligations under international and regional refugee protection instruments, as well as Cameroonian law,” he said.

Issa Tchiroma Bakary, Cameroon government spokesman, told Reuters the allegations were not true. “I formally deny this rumor that Cameroon forced Nigerian refugees to return to Nigeria,” he said.

Jihadist group Boko Haram has displaced over 2 million people in Nigeria since 2009, conducting an insurgency aimed at creating an Islamic caliphate in the northeast of Africa’s most populous nation.

Partly due to the conflict, the U.N. warned last month that aid agencies must get food to nearly 3 million people by July to avert a famine in the Lake Chad region – shared between Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria and Chad – caused by drought, chronic poverty and Boko Haram.

Cameroon says it has stuck to the terms of an agreement signed on March 2 with Nigeria and the UNHCR for “the voluntary return of Nigerian refugees when conditions were conducive”.

“Cameroon is respecting its engagements,” Bakary said.

(Reporting by Alexis Akwagyiram in Abuja and Sylvain Andzongo in Yaounde; Edited by Vin Shahrestani)

Man claiming to be Boko Haram leader denies 5,000 hostages freed

By Ardo Abdullahi

BAUCHI, Nigeria (Reuters) – A man purporting to be the leader of Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram denied in a video posted on Friday that 5,000 people held by the group had been freed by West African forces earlier in the week.

On Wednesday, Cameroon said regional forces had rescued the hostages, who were held in villages by the jihadist group, in an operation along the Nigeria-Cameroon border.

“You are telling lies that you killed 60 of our men and rescued 20 children, and that you rescued 5,000 of your people, Paul Biya,” said the man claiming to be Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, referring to Cameroon’s president.

He also claimed responsibility for attacks earlier this week which included suicide bombings in the city of Maiduguri and a raid on the town of Magumeri, both of which are in the northeast Nigerian state of Borno.

Nigeria’s military has said on multiple occasions in the last few years that it has killed or wounded Shekau.

Such statements have often been followed by video denials by someone who says he is Shekau, but poor footage makes it difficult to confirm if the person is the same man as in previous footage.

Boko Haram has killed around 15,000 people and forced more than 2 million people to flee their homes since 2009 in an insurgency aimed at creating a state adhering to strict Islamic laws in the northeast of Africa’s most populous nation.

The jihadist group, whose attacks have increased since the end of the rainy season in late 2016, also carries out cross-border attacks in neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Kingimi; writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Four suicide bombers kill two in northeast Nigeria’s Maiduguri

National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) workers attend to a woman after suicide bombers detonated their explosives along Muna Garage in Maiduguri, Nigeria, March 15, 2017. NEMA/Handout via REUTERS

By Kolawole Adewale and Lanre Ola

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – Four female teenage suicide bombers killed two people and injured 16 others in a residential area in the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri, a disaster agency spokesman said on Wednesday.

The girls knocked on the door of a house and then detonated their devices, a representative of the state-run emergency service in Borno State said.

The focus on individual homes is a new tactic.

“Community leaders should create awareness among residents not to open their doors for anybody (if) they are not aware of the visit,” Borno police commissioner Damian Chukwu said.

The blasts in the Muna Garage area, on the edge of the city worst hit by jihadist group Boko Haram’s eight-year insurgency, occurred around 1:15 a.m (0015 GMT), National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) spokesman Abdulkadir Ibrahim said.

“Four female teenage suicide bombers and two other men died,” he said.

Hours later, suspected Boko Haram militants attacked the town of Magumeri, around 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Maiduguri, shooting indiscriminately and forcing locals to flee their homes, witnesses said.

Residents said the attackers burned down buildings and opened fire after arriving in vans and on motorcycles at around 05:00 p.m. (1600 GMT).

“They were shooting sporadically, one person was dead near them. The police station, village head’s house and other residences were burnt down,” civil servant Mustapha Aja said by telephone. He said he had been separated from his wife and children.

The number of attacks or attempted attacks bearing the hallmarks of Boko Haram in crowded areas, such as markets and refugee camps, has escalated since the end of the rainy season in late 2016.

Most of the attacks have either been foiled or the suicide bombers have only managed to blow themselves up.

The jihadist group has killed 15,000 people and displaced more than two million during its campaign to create an Islamic state governed by a harsh interpretation of sharia law in the northeast of Africa’s most populous nation.

It has also carried out cross-border attacks in neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

Cameroon said on Wednesday that West African forces had freed 5,000 people being held in villages by Boko Haram, in an operation that killed more than 60 fighters and destroyed the jihadist group’s hideout along the Nigeria-Cameroon border.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Kingimi and Ardo Abdullahi; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Hundreds of thousands of Nigerians trapped by conflict: MSF

FILE PHOTO: People walk inside the Muna Internally displace people camp in Maiduguri, Nigeria December 1, 2016 REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde/File Photo

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Hundreds of thousands of people in northeastern Nigeria remain beyond the reach of aid, trapped between Boko Haram Islamist insurgents and counter-insurgency operations that have left many without food or work, Doctors Without Borders said.

Those who reach health centers report continuing violence against civilians by both sides in Borno state, said Bruno Jochum, general director of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Switzerland, upon return from the region.

“There are hundreds of thousands of people who are not accessible today for humanitarian assistance,” he told Reuters.

“What we see is a civilian population who for a bit more than two years has been caught and trapped between, on the one hand, violent attacks by the Boko Haram movement and, the other hand, very strong counter-insurgency operations by the Nigerian armed forces,” Jochum said.

Around 800,000 displaced people – mainly women, children and elderly – live near the state capital Maiduguri, about a quarter of them in camps, MSF says. The medical charity focuses on providing maternal and child health.

“Those that are accessible outside the regional capital often are regrouped in small towns, camps under the control of the Nigerian military, but they cannot move out or can hardly move … and they are not able to plant. They are completely cut off from their livelihoods,” Jochum said.

Boko Haram has killed around 15,000 people and forced more than 2 million from their homes during a seven-year insurgency.

Access has improved somewhat in Borno in the last six months after reports of people dying from malnutrition, Jochum said.

Nutrition and food distribution programs have helped, but the situation remains “extremely fragile”.

“There was a big focus on the food crisis last year and the need for a big pipeline of international aid to ensure the survival of the population.

“It’s still absolutely needed for the coming year but it should not hide what is behind it, which is an enormous issue of safety and protection for populations within a conflict where there are political and military objectives which in the end have little regard for civilians.”

An air strike by the Nigerian air force, which it said was accidental, on the town of Rann in January killed up to 150 people and wounded the same number, mainly people queuing for food vouchers, Jochum said. Three water and sanitation workers hired by MSF were among the dead.

“There are victims of this bombing who are going to need long-term help. You have people who have lost their physical integrity, who have been handicapped probably for life and you have children who lost their parents,” he said.

“It does raise questions about the conduct of warfare and proportionality beyond an individual event.”

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Millions risk starvation in Nigeria, Lake Chad region: United Nations

Children attend a class at a primary school in Muna Garage IDP camp, Maiduguri, Nigeria November 7, 2016. UNICEF/Naftalin/Handout via REUTERS

By Gwladys Fouche

OSLO (Reuters) – More than seven million people risk starvation in Nigeria’s insurgency-hit northeastern region and around Lake Chad, a senior U.N. official said on Wednesday ahead of a new funding appeal.

Famine has been ongoing since last year in parts of Nigeria where the government is fighting a seven-year long Boko Haram insurgency.

An international donor conference in Oslo on Friday will aim to raise a chunk of the $1.5 billion the United Nations says it needs to address deepening food insecurity in the region this year.

“They are living on the edge, barely getting by on one meal a day,” Toby Lanzer, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel, told Reuters. “My biggest concern today is starvation.”

Earlier this week the United Nations said 1.4 million children were at risk of “imminent death” in famines in Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen.

Lanzer said he was worried the Boko Haram insurgency would deter farmers from planting their crops after missing the last three planting seasons, and that the number of lives at risk could increase. He also expressed concerns the coming rainy season could harm vulnerable people.

“Hungry people without shelter when it rains die,” he said.

Lanzer said the humanitarian response needed to go beyond food aid and include seeds, tools and fishing nets.

Lanzer said he hoped a total $500 million will have been pledged by the end of February, including this week’s funding round.

Lanzer, who has also worked in South Sudan, Darfur and Chechnya, said it was difficult to estimate how many people would die from hunger in the next few months.

“If we were to lose another planting season, I dread to think how severe the crisis could get,” he said.

Some 10.7 million people in northeastern Nigeria and around Lake Chad — roughly two in every three people — need humanitarian aid, according to the United Nations.

Boko Haram militants have killed about 15,000 people and forced more than 2 million from their homes, and still launch deadly attacks despite having been pushed out of the vast swathes of territory they controlled in 2014.

Lanzer cautioned that failure to address the deteriorating situation could encourage more Africans to try and flee to Europe.

(Editing by Richard Lough)

Multiple suicide bombing targets Nigerian refugees, Boko Haram blamed

people walk at the site of a bombing attack

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – Seven suspected Boko Haram militants blew themselves on the outskirts of a northeast Nigerian city on Friday, a local aid agency said, in an attack witnesses said targeted refugees preparing to return to their home villages.

The bombing took place outside Maiduguri, the population center at the heart of a government campaign to eradicate the Islamist group, whose more than seven-year insurgency has killed 15,000 people and forced some two million from their homes.

The Borno State Emergency Management Agency said eight members of a local militia, the civilian Joint Task Force, were wounded in the attack, which underscored Boko Haram’s ability to continue to operate despite the government’s insistence it has crushed the group.

Witnesses told Reuters the attackers detonated their bombs

near a large refugee camp, outside which crowds of displaced people were gathering around trucks to form convoys before trying to return home.

In December, President Muhammadu Buhari said the capture of a key camp marked the “final crushing” of Boko Haram in its last enclave in Sambisa forest, once the group’s stronghold.

But since then the group, which split into two factions last year, has stepped up its attacks.

One Boko Haram faction is led by Abubakar Shekau from the Sambisa forest and the other, allied to jihadist group Islamic State, and led by Abu Musab al-Barnawi, based in the Lake Chad region.

(Reporting by Ahmed Kingimi, Adewale Kolawole and Ola Lanre in Maiduguri; Writing by Paul Carsten; editing by John Stonestreet)