Tag: Boko Haram

Displaced by Boko Haram’s violence, Nigerians finally get food to prevent famine

August 4, 2017 Nigeria Adamawa, Boko Haram, Borno, Christian Association of Nigeria, IDPs, Nigeria, UN, Yobe

Food aid has reached 15,000 families in Northeast Nigeria who live in famine-like conditions. (Photo: Open Doors International)

The current crisis in northeast Nigeria has been called the “greatest crisis on the African continent“. More than five million Nigerians live in famine-like conditions in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states, the epicentre of the eight years-long Boko Haram insurgency. According to the World Food Programme, the ongoing insecurity has . . . Read More

42 Chibok girls graduate from secondary school

July 28, 2017 Nigeria Abuja, Boko Haram, Borno, Chibok girls, Education, Katsina, Nigeria, Plateau

Jubilant scenes after 81 Chibok girls were reunited with their families in May. Some of the first escapees were able to recommence their secondary-school education and graduated this week. (Photo: Getty Images)

From the 57 Chibok girls who escaped Boko Haram captivity in Nigeria shortly after their kidnapping in 2014, 42 of them graduated from secondary school last Tuesday (26 July). The girls were sponsored to study at private schools by the Borno state government and the non-profit organisation Girl Child Concern, . . . Read More

Four Chibok girls to start university in US in August

July 21, 2017 Nigeria Boko Haram, Chibok girls, Education, Nigeria

It’s many thousands of miles from the Government Secondary School in Chibok, Borno, Nigeria, to university in the United States. But, following their kidnapping on 14 April 2014, it’s a journey that a handful of young girls from remote, rural north-eastern Nigeria have now made. (Their fellow escapees remain in Nigeria, . . . Read More

Food aid starts to reach 5m Boko Haram victims, now at risk of famine

July 10, 2017 Nigeria Abuja, Boko Haram, Cameroon, IDPs, Jos, Lagos, Migrants, Refugees

15,000 families who are facing 'acute food insecurity' in northern Nigeria receive food aid. (Photo: Open Doors)

It’s been called the “greatest crisis on the African continent“. The UN’s World Food Programme in mid-June warned that hundreds of thousands of Nigerians could starve to death in the famine-threatened northeast due to lack of aid funds to feed them. It needs $172 million to help. Now the militants . . . Read More

Thousands of Nigerian refugees forced back home to looming famine

June 30, 2017 Nigeria Adamawa, Boko Haram, Borno, Cameroon, Chad, IDPs, Niger, Refugees, UN, Yobe

Thousands of Nigerians who fled Boko Haram’s insurgency, and sought refuge in neighbouring Cameroon, have been forced back home, the UN said on 29 June, as Reuters reports. According to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), some 887 Nigerians, most of them children, were repatriated against their will on 27 June alone. The . . . Read More

Lake Chad Basin crisis to dominate African Union Summit

June 27, 2017 Addis Ababa, African Union, Benin, Boko Haram, Borno, Cameroon, Chad, Lake Chad, Maiduguri, Muhammadu Buhari, Niger, Nigeria

As the 29th African Union (AU) Summit begins today (27 June), one of the major talking points will be the “now-major conflict zone” of the Lake Chad Basin, writes Omar S Mahmood, analyst at The Institute for Security Studies. The UN has described the situation in north-eastern Nigeria – one . . . Read More

New trauma centre to help northern Nigeria’s 2.7m conflict-affected children

June 27, 2017 Nigeria Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen, Trauma, UN

Twelve years after his death, Martina has finally ‘buried’ her father. Not in the real sense – he is in a mass grave somewhere unknown – but by saying goodbye in her own way, thanks to help from trauma counsellors helping women and children in northern Nigeria. UNICEF estimates more . . . Read More

Boko Haram’s boy soldiers: a ‘stolen and forgotten generation’

June 26, 2017 Nigeria Boko Haram, Chibok girls

Nigerians fled their homes in Yobe, Borno and Adamawa States due to the clashes between Nigeria's militant group Boko Haram and Nigerian Army, hold on life under tough conditions at a camp in Damari, Adamawa State, Nigeria on December 6, 2014.

The estimated 10,000 boy soldiers taken by Islamist militant group Boko Haram since the start of their insurgency in Nigeria in 2009 have lived through experiences many cannot imagine – nor would they want to – including ritualistic infant slaughter and bathing of hands in blood. But unlike the abduction . . . Read More

Persecution ‘key driver of displacement’ says UNHCR, voicing concerns about returns

June 20, 2017 Global News -- No Particular Country Afghanistan, Boko Haram, Converts, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Europe, Fulani herdsmen, Islamic extremism, Middle Belt, Migrants, Nigeria, Refugees, South Sudan, Syria, Uganda, UN

More people are currently displaced through conflict and persecution than at any time since the Second World War. According to the Global Trends report, published by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), 65.6 million people were forcibly displaced at the end of 2016. The report noted that the number of refugee returns . . . Read More

Deadly conflict tearing Nigeria apart (and it’s not Boko Haram)

June 15, 2017 Nigeria Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen, Kaduna, Kafanchan, Middle Belt, Nigeria, West Africa

In Nigeria, it’s not only the northeast regions, stronghold of the radical Islamic sect Boko Haram, that have been the scene of severe violence. The Middle Belt of the country is also the scene of ever-continuing attacks on Christian farmers by mainly Muslim Hausa-Fulani herdsmen, as a report from IRIN . . . Read More

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