UN provides 31 mln USD for humanitarian aid in Lake Chad Basin

The UN Humanitarian Chief, Stephen O'Brien, has allocated 31 million U.S. dollars to provide urgent humanitarian aid for about 1.7 million people affected by Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin region, said a spokesperson here on Tuesday.

The money from the UN's Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) will be used to provide urgent food, drinking water, shelter, health care, protection and education for about 1.7 million people, among the 2.7 million people affected by Boko Haram-related violence in the region, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told a daily briefing.

"Many people have lost everything. Hundreds of thousands of women and children continue to bear the brunt of the Boko Haram violence," said O'Brien.

"The 31 million dollars CERF allocation will provide a much-needed injection of funds for partners to provide for the most basic life sustaining needs in the Lake Chad region. Saving lives and protecting people in the region is at the centre of the humanitarian response," he said.

The Lake Chad Basin region, which comprises Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria, is one of the fastest growing displacement crises in Africa due to activities by Boko Haram and counter-insurgency operations. UN statistics show that of the displaced people in the region, 1.5 million are children.

The Nigeria-based extremist group Boko Haram has been blamed for scores of attacks on schools and universities in an insurgency that has killed at least 17,000 people since 2009.

The armed group made international headlines in April 2014 when its members kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from a school in Chibok, a town in Borno State, Nigeria. Fifty-three of the school girls escaped but the rest remained missing.

The violence has hit women and children particularly hard as they are being abducted, raped and trafficked, forced to work as lookouts and used as suicide bombers. Enditem