| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa Subsaharan |
| U.N.: More Than 1.5 mn Flee Nigeria Violence, Crisis of 'Enormous Concern' |
| 2014-11-21 |
| [AnNahar] Growing violence by Islamist forces of Evil has forced more than 1.5 million Nigerians to flee their homes and is deepening an already dire humanitarian situation in Nigeria, the U.N. warned Wednesday. "Nigeria is without question of enormous concern," said Robert Piper, who coordinates the U.N.'s humanitarian work in the Sahel region ... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas... He said the violence wreaked by the Islamist Death Eaters of Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... was "generating more and more suffering, it is generating more and more displacement." Nigeria has in the past six months alone seen the number of people displaced inside the country soar from 600,000 to around 1.5 million, he said, quoting Nigerian government estimates. In addition, some 100,000 Nigerians have fled across the borders to Cameroon ...a long, narrow country that fills the space between Nigeria and Chad on the northeast, CAR to the southeast. Prior to incursions by Boko Haram nothing ever happened there... and Niger, Piper told news hounds in Geneva. That Nigerians see Niger, the world's poorest country, as a sanctuary "gives you a sense of what they must be fleeing from," Piper said. More than 13,000 people have been killed since the insurgency began in 2009 and Boko Haram is now said to be in control of more than two dozen towns in its quest for a hardline Islamic state. According to Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency, 3.3 million people have been directly or indirectly impacted by the conflict in the northeast of the country. "Our worry is that it will continue to spiral out of control with devastating consequences both for Nigeria itself and for the region," Piper said, adding that "the scale of the challenges there are truly very, very worrying indeed." The fact that Nigeria produces half of west Africa's food makes the situation there all the more alarming, he said. Taking a broader look, Piper said the entire Sahel region, which counts nine countries -- Burkina Faso ...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other... , Cameroon, Chad, Gambia ... The Gambia is actually surrounded by Senegal on all sides but its west coast. It has a population of about 1.7 million. The difference between the two is that in colonial days Senegal was ruled by La Belle France and The Gambia (so-called because there's only one of it, unlike Guinea, of which there are the Republic of Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, New Guinea, the English coin in circulation between 1663 and 1813, and Guyana, which sounds like it should be another one) was ruled by Britain... , Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal ... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees... -- has seen a dramatic increase in the number of people scrambling to put food on the table. Just since the beginning of the year, the number of people considered food insecure has jumped from 20 to 25 million. Across the region, 6.4 million children are acutely malnourished, Piper said, with around 600,000 children dying of causes linked to malnutrition each year. The U.N. has appealed for $1.9 billion (1.5 billion euros) towards humanitarian aid to the Sahel in 2014, but has received just $1.1 billion of that. The U.N. also said it had received just $12.3 million, or 13 percent, of the $93.4 million requested for humanitarian aid in Nigeria. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |