NE Nigeria's humanitarian emergency among "most severe": UN
Xinhua,December 12, 2017 Adjust font size:
LAGOS, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations said Monday the humanitarian emergency in restive Nigeria's North-East region was among the most severe in the world today.
Edward Kallon, the Humanitarian Coordinator of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), who made this known in a statement issued in Maiduguri, the Borno capital, said humanitarian needs in the region remain vast.
He added that the UN has allocated 13.4 million U.S. dollars for Nigeria Humanitarian Fund (NHF) to support over 1 million people in need of critical life-saving assistance in the war-ravaged region.
He said 8.5 million people are in need of life-saving assistance in 2017 in the worst-affected states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe.
The NHF allocation would help address the devastating situation by financing 24 projects covering areas including nutrition, water and sanitation, health and education, Kallon said.
According to him, the intervention was targeting 950,000 people displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency.
The NHF is one of the 18 country-based pooled funds launched during the Oslo Humanitarian Conference on Nigeria and the Lake Chad Region in February 2017.
The fund was being managed by the OCHA. To date, the NHF had received 41 million dollars in contributions. Enditem