Highlights
-
Families returning to newly accessible areas face immense humanitarian challenges including food shortages, X malnutrition, lack of livelihoods, and limited access to water, sanitation and health services.
-
To improve coordination for effective delivery of humanitarian response the President of Nigeria has appointed an inter-ministerial task force led by State Minister of Budget and National planning.
-
Nearly 2.7 million affected population have access to UNICEF supported primary healthcare services and 89,178 severe acute malnourished children have been admitted into therapeutic feeding programmes with a cure rate is above 87 per cent.
-
With UNICEF support, 479,533 affected people have access to safe water. Psychosocial support has reached 134,743 children and 83,970 children are benefitting from education services through protective and safe learning environment.
-
The HAC funding requirements have been revised upwards to US$115 million. UNICEF’s scale up plan remains critically underfunded, which is a major constraint in scaling up with an integrated response in most affected areas of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.
Situation Overview & Humanitarian Needs
Critical levels of malnutrition and food insecurity continue in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa States in North East Nigeria. The Famine Early Warning Systems (FEWS) Network for Nigeria, reports1 from their recent field visits that the food security situation across the three northeast states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe remains critical.
In northeast Nigeria, over 14.8 million people are affected by Boko Haram related violence. Nearly 1.9 million people have been displaced with over 1.4 million IDPs in Borno state alone. Children constitute 54 per cent of the displaced population, half of them are under five years of age. Nearly 81.3 per cent of IDPs are residing in host communities and the remaining are in IDP camps. In total there are 115 camp sites in Borno (86), Adamawa (24) and Yobe (5).2 Ninety-two per cent of the IDPs are hosted by low - income host communities, bringing already - stretched services and resources under increased pressure.
According to IOM’s August 2016 DTM, nearly 910,000 displaced individuals have returned to their areas of origin in in 19 LGAs in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states.3 The Government facilitated voluntary return of displaced populations is gaining momentum with thousands of people returning to their homes in the newly liberated areas. However, the scale of damage in returning areas is immense and new humanitarian challenges are emerging. UNHCR reports that returning families face a precarious security situation, food shortages, economic disruption, and limited access to food, water and sanitation, shelter and health services. There are also reports of land mines and improvised explosive devices in the areas of return.
UNICEF Chief of Field Office and WASH Specialist from Maiduguri participated in an interagency UN mission to Dikwa and Mafa. There are spontaneous returnees to both locations from Maiduguri. The actual number of returnees to these locations is not yet available, IOM is starting the registration process through the DTM exercise. In both locations, the most pressing concerns are food, the prevalence of malnutrition and critical shortage of WASH services. Most of the schools in both locations are occupied by IDPs while some IDPs are scattered within the host community. In Dikwa, IDPs are staying in four schools due to flooding in some IDP camps. Only one school is open for children of all levels/ages. Currently UNICEF is the only agency on the ground providing critical life-saving nutrition, health, WASH, education and child protection services.
UNICEF health staff participated in the joint UN assessment mission to Gujba LGA in Yobe state. The team visited two wards, Buni Yadi and Gujba, to assess the health services available for the returnees/IDPs. In these two wards, all the health facilities have been destroyed or vandalized, the only health services available, using temporary structures, is the outreach team being supported by UNICEF in the two wards.