Alene i 2014 er flere end 200.000 nigerianere drevet på flugt af den ekstreme muslimske gruppe Boko Haram. Internationale hjælpeorganisationer holder sig tilbage, fordi de har indtryk af at Nigeria selv kan klare problemerne. Men det kan det ikke.
KANO, 22 April 2014 (IRIN): Security fears, a lack of humanitarian actors on the ground and a perception that Nigeria’s government can handle its crises without help, are leaving many of the thousands displaced by Boko Haram violence in the northeast short of food, with little to no access to health care or basics like clean water and blankets.
The Nigerian disaster authority is calling for international help to urgently boost the aid response.
“We can’t cater to needs of all [the affected] – resources are not adequate. We are trying our best to meet people’s needs but it’s not easy,” Manzo Ezekiel, spokesperson for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), which is leading the disaster response, told IRIN. “We need the help of international NGOs. The government alone cannot do it.” NEMA and the State Emergency Management Agencies, (SEMA) are leading on the humanitarian response.
According to the most recent assessment by NEMA, violence displaced 249,446 people in Yobe, Borno and Adamawa states between January and March 2014. Half of the population of 12 million living in these three states are directly affected by the ongoing violence.
Extremist group, Boko Haram, has been waging a campaign of indiscriminate violence for the past few years. In its latest attack it abducted 100 schoolchildren from their school hostel in Chibok in Borno State.
Many of the displaced face “horrendous” sanitation conditions, according to NEMA, with 500 people sharing a single latrine; the already crumbling healthcare system is in a state of “entire collapse” – 37 percent of primary health centres are closed; while civilians who have experienced brutal violence have no human rights commission to address their concerns.
Most people NEMA interviewed said they had reduced their meals from three to one per day. NEMA has delivered food to 200,000 people but 50,000 had not yet received distributions as of its March assessment.
Why aid is slow
Assistance has been slow to gear up for a variety of reasons. Firstly, internally displaced persons (IDPs) are hard to find, as just a fraction of them live in camps – the vast majority are staying with family or friends in state capitals, or southern states.
“IDPs fear they will be attacked in camps. They prefer moving to urban areas trying to blend with the host families. But the capacity of host families to absorb has been stretched,” said Choice Okoro, OCHA’s representative in Nigeria.
“We have to provide assistance to a population that is not in camps and that is constantly moving,” she said. “The displaced populations from the three states under a state of emergency usually live with host families, and then the host families are attacked.”
NEMA has since appointed a location in flood-affected Gombe State to host IDPs, and is currently setting up coordination and camp management systems.
Boko Haram’s indiscriminate violence is also hampering aid access, and negotiating access has remained difficult for aid agencies who are attempting it.
“The problem in the northeast is a security problem – we have no idea what happens from one day to the next,” NEMA’s Ezekiel told IRIN.
Not many humanitarian agencies are present in northeastern Nigeria, mainly because of the insecurity, and also because the government is strong and has traditionally projected an image that it is capable of taking care of its own problems, despite consistently high malnutrition levels and a crumbling health infrastructure.
Only a dozen or so aid agencies are present in the northeast and just a few of them are responding to the humanitarian situation, among them the Nigerian Red Cross, ICRC, International Rescue Committee, Action against Hunger, and the UN Population Fund. Most declined IRIN’s requests of an interview.
“Taken by surprise”
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