Donors pledge $163m for Boko Haram victims

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This photo taken on Sept 15 shows a mother holding her young malnourished baby at a public health facility in the Dalaram district of Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria. (AFP)
This photo taken on Sept 15 shows a mother holding her young malnourished baby at a public health facility in the Dalaram district of Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria. (AFP)

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 24, (AP): International donors pledged over $160 million for life-saving support for millions of people in west Africa whose lives have been thrown into turmoil by the Muslim extremist group Boko Haram on Friday — but that’s just one-third of the amount needed for the rest of this year.

UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson called the upheaval in the Lake Chad Basin, which straddles Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger “one of the worst crises in today’s world” and said it must not become a “forgotten crisis.” Over nine million people across the basin urgently need humanitarian aid, he said, and 6.3 million aren’t getting enough to eat.

At a high-level conference Friday on the sidelines of the General Assembly’s annual ministerial meeting, the UN humanitarian office said donors pledged $163 million of the $542 million needed this year. Major donors included Belgium, Italy, Britain and the United States. Assistant Secretary-General Toby Lanzer, the humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel, said “the Lake Chad Basin crisis is one of the most acute emergencies in the world.”

“The situation of many affected communities has deteriorated beyond alarming levels,” he said. “If we do not act fast, and do more, especially in areas that were previously inaccessible, thousands of people will die.” As a result of Boko Haram’s attacks, Eliasson said, civilians have been killed, homes torched, possessions looted and livelihoods destroyed. “Tens of thousands of people in northeastern Nigeria are living in famine conditions,” he said.

Eliasson said the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls from Chibok in Nigeria in April 2014 “is a horrifi c example of the use of sexual violence as a tactic of war and terrorism.” He called for the immediate release of all those abducted and said the United Nations is “actively looking into” a request by Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari for UN assistance in negotiating the release of the Chibok girls. He said the UN is in contact with Mohammed Ibn Chambas, who heads the UN’s West Africa offi ce, “to advise on how we can be helpful.”

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