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UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa: Lake Chad crisis is a children’s crisis
UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa: Lake Chad crisis is a children’s crisis
7/9/16
Years of violence by Boko Haram in Africa’s Lake Chad basin have
led to a worsening humanitarian crisis that has displaced 1.4 million children
and left at least one million still trapped in hard-to-reach areas, UNICEF said
in a report released on August 25th 2016.
“The Lake Chad crisis is a children’s crisis that should rank high
on the global migration and displacement agenda,” said Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF
Regional Director for West and Central Africa. “Humanitarian needs are
outpacing the response, especially now that new areas previously unreachable in
north-east Nigeria become accessible.”
Released ahead of the United Nations Summit on Refugees and
Migrants (September 19th 2016), Children on the move, children left behind,
looks at the impact of the Boko Haram insurgency on children in Nigeria,
Cameroun, Chad and Niger and its devastating toll on children.
The report notes that:
• In addition to the 2.6 million people currently displaced,
an additional 2.2 million people – over half of them children – are feared to
be trapped in areas under the control of Boko Haram and need humanitarian
assistance.
• An estimated 38 children have been used to carry out
suicide attacks in Lake Chad basin so far this year, bringing to 86 the total
number of children used as suicide bombers since 2014.
• An estimated 475,000 children across Lake Chad will suffer
from severe acute malnutrition this year, up from 175,000 at the beginning of
the year.
• In north-east Nigeria alone, an estimated 20,000 children
have been separated from their families.
The report also notes that most of the displaced population – more
than 8 in 10 people – are staying with families and neighbours, putting
additional strain on some of the world’s poorest communities.
“Local communities are sharing the little they have to help those
in need in an act of humanity that is replicated in thousands of homes across
the conflict-affect areas,” said Fontaine.
UNICEF is working with partners to meet the basic needs of
children and their families in the conflict-affected areas. So far this year,
nearly 170,000 children received psychosocial support, almost 100,000 were
treated for severe acute malnutrition and over 100,000 took part in learning
programmes.
UNICEF has received only 13 per cent of the US$ 308 million it
needs to provide assistance to the families affected by Boko Haram violence
across Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
The children’s agency is appealing to the donor community to step
up its support for the affected communities.
Additional resources will help UNICEF and its partners scale up
the response – particularly as access to areas previously under Boko Haram
control is revealing growing humanitarian needs./.
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All comments [ 10 ]
There is no doubt that the effects of war extend to the most vulnerable members of society, including children.
Although armed conflicts occur throughout the world, the African continent seems to be a particular background for civil and international wars.
Contrary to common belief, the causes of conflict are complicated and multi-factorial. The effects of war on childhood are disastrous and include severe negative effects on general paediatric health status.
War affects children in all the ways it affects adults, but also in different ways.
impacts in childhood may adversely affect the life trajectory of children far more than adults.
Hundreds of thousands of children die of direct violence in war each year. They die as civilians caught in the violence of war, as combatants directly targeted, or in the course of ethnic cleansing.
Children are exposed to situations of terror and horror during war – experiences that may leave enduring impacts in posttraumatic stress disorder.
The experience of indifference from the surrounding world, or, worse still, malevolence may cause children to suffer loss of meaning in their construction of themselves in their world.
Children may lose their community and its culture during war, sometimes having it reconstituted in refugee or diaspora situations.
Some efforts at rehabilitation of war-affected children include social healing moving toward education in the Culture of Peace. This is an approach to primary prevention of recurrence of war.
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