ReliefWeb

Background

The violent conflict in the Lake Chad Basin has continuously deteriorated. Boko Haram raids and suicide bombings targeting civilians are causing widespread trauma, preventing people from accessing essential services and destroying vital infrastructure. Around 21 million people live in the affected areas across the four Lake Chad countries. The number of displaced people has tripled over the last two years. Most of the displaced families are sheltered by communities that count among the world’s poorest and most vulnerable. Food insecurity and malnutrition have reached critical levels.

Recent developments

Attacks attributed to Boko Haram continue to rattle several localities in the region. Insecurity in border areas in Chad’s Lac region has constrained humanitarian access, depriving thousands of conflict-affected populations of adequate assistance.

In the Far North region of Cameroon, several cross-border raids have been reported recently, resulting in civilian and military casualties.

Newly-accessible localities in north-eastern Nigeria have also come under repeated attacks by suspected Boko Haram elements, with markets, homes food and livestock convoys hit by the gunmen. Separately, an ongoing massive polio vaccination campaign across the Lake Chad Basin aims to immunize 41 million children against the virus and contain an outbreak that erupted after new cases were diagnosed in August in Nigeria’s north-eastern Borno State. Population movement due to the Boko Haram-related conflict in the region raises concerns that the disease could spread across borders. Some 39,000 health workers have deployed across Chad, the Central African Republic, Niger and Nigeria to vaccinate children in areas at high-risk of infection.

The vaccination is being carried out in five coordinated rounds.