Poverty, conflict and climate change will leave 15 million people
across Africa’s Sahel belt in need of life-saving aid next year, the UN
said as it launched a record $2.7 billion humanitarian appeal for the
region in 2017.
Around 40 per cent of the money (about $1 billion) will be used to
help some seven million people in Nigeria affected by the jihadist group
Boko Haram’s seven-year insurgency, according to the U.N. Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The UN’s statement of about 7 million Nigerians needing help in the
aftermath of the Boko Haram insurgency comes days after the Nigerian
government accused the global body and other international organisations working in the north-east of exaggerating the crisis for financial reasons.
“We are concerned about the blatant attempts to whip up a
non-existent fear of mass starvation by some aid agencies, a type of
hype that does not provide a solution to the situation on the ground but
more to do with calculations for operations financing locally and
abroad,” Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari said in a statement by his
spokesperson.
The president highlighted what he said were contradictions in some of
the claims made by different humanitarian groups about the crisis.
“In a recent instance, one arm of the United Nations screamed that
100,000 people will die due to starvation next year. A different group
says a million will die,” he said.
Mr. Buhari was reacting to statements made by officials of
international organisations including the UN highlighting the
humanitarian crisis in north-east Nigeria.
The U.N. Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator, Peter Lundberg, had said in
a statement last Friday that “A projected 5.1 million people will face
serious food shortages as the (Boko Haram) conflict and risk of
unexploded improvised devices prevented farmers planting for the third
year in a row, causing a major food crisis.”
Unperturbed by the Nigerian president’s remarks, the UN has decided
to make the appeal to raise the funds to help the millions of victims.
OCHA has increased its appeal for eight countries in the semi-arid
band stretching from Senegal to Chad more than tenfold in as many years,
but each year funding has fallen short.
This year’s $2 billion appeal has been less than half-funded to date.
“The lack of funding this year has worsened the humanitarian needs of
11 million people in the Lake Chad Basin, where the crisis is most
acute,” the U.N.’s regional humanitarian coordinator, Toby Lanzer, said.
One in six people across the Sahel are hungry, while in many
communities throughout the region, a fifth of children under the age of
five are malnourished, according to figures from OCHA.
In addition to violence involving militant groups, climate change is a
major factor behind the growing number of vulnerable people across the
region, as increasingly unpredictable rainfall patterns disrupt local
food production, aid workers say.
“We are adapting by equipping farmers and policymakers with climate
information and early warning forecasts, and being prepared not just
weeks, but months and years ahead,” said Arame Tall, Africa regional
coordinator of the U.N.-led Global Framework for Climate Services.
The vast number of vulnerable people, and those forced from their
homes by violence across the Sahel, some 4.5 million, is fuelling
migration to Europe and driving more young men to join militant groups,
according to the UN.
Nigeria is the main country of origin for migrants arriving in Italy
by sea this year, says the International Organization for Migration
(IOM).
At least 34,000 Nigerians have crossed from Libya so far in 2016, up from 22,200 last year, IOM data shows.
“Families and communities are separated and split, education is
disrupted, and dreams of success dashed,” said Anne Moltes, regional
director of the peace building group Inter peace.
“If there is no structure, young men leave to find figures of authority elsewhere,” she said at the launch of the appeal.
Africa’s booming population, estimated by the UN to double to 2.4
billion by 2050, will only exacerbate the situation and leave more
people in need of aid, Lanzer said.
The Sahel appeal was launched days after OCHA asked for a record
$22.2 billion in 2017 to help almost 93 million people worldwide hit by
conflicts and natural disasters.
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