Children and their parents in an IDP camp
The Network of Civil Society Organization (NECSO) has disclosed that 23,000 lives were lost, while about 2.2 million people were displaced from the towns and villages in Borno State alone by the Boko Haram insurgency.
The Chairman/Executive Director of NECSO in Borno, Ambassador Ahmed Shehu who stated this at the North East Humanitarian Submit held in Maiduguri at the weekend said that the World Humanitarian day was designated by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly to celebrate the spirit of those brutally murdered by terrorists who attacked the UN headquarters in Bagdad, Iraq, where 22 people were killed, including the UN envoy, Sergio Vieira De mello.
He said, “the present security challenges in Borno have left thousands of families without homes and loved ones. The Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are not well taken care of by both national and international actors, as they are over looked in all interventions and don’t exist in the framework and thematic areas of most interventions.”
Ambassador Shehu said the North-eastern part of Nigeria and Maiduguri in particular continued to face severe humanitarian crisis with Boko Haram insurgency and counter insurgency measures, resulting in death, insecurity, human right violations, exacerbating the plight of vulnerable civilians and triggering waves of forced displacement.
The representative of the Borno state Governor, Alhaji Bulama Mali Gubio said “the crisis in Borno state is different from those in Afghanistan, Somalia and other parts of the world, as the Boko Haram terrorists not only kill people but they also destroy houses, maim, abduct, rape women and commit other heinous crimes beyond human imaginations”.
He appealed to international communities to assist in the reconstruction, rehabilitation and resettlement process, so that the IDPs will return to their various communities to pick up the pieces of their lives.
