* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Without a massive scale-up in international support, the situation is set to get even worse. A ‘perfect storm’ is looming on the horizon
A few weeks ago, I met a little boy called Modu in a camp for displaced people in the rural city of Bama. He and his mother had just fled from a remote village outside Konduga during a military operation against Boko Haram. Modu is 12 months old but only weighs 6 kg and is suffering from severe acute malnutrition. He is lucky; the doctors at the UNICEF medical screening center say that he will survive. But many other children will not be as fortunate as Modu. Around half a million children in north-east Nigeria suffer from severe acute malnutrition; without treatment one in five will die.
The crisis in north-east Nigeria has reached epic proportions. A staggering 26 million people are affected by the conflict in 6 states, almost equivalent to the entire population of Texas, the second largest State in the US. Despite national efforts, 4.7 million people do not know where their next meal will come from, and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has warned that the country is at-risk of famine. Without a massive scale-up in international support, the situation is set to get even worse. A ‘perfect storm’ is looming on the horizon.
In north-east Nigeria, we, the leaders of the humanitarian community in country, are doing our utmost to respond to the crisis. Humanitarian actors are reaching 1.7 million food insecure people in the north east. The World Food Programme has increased the number of people reached with food assistance by almost 700%; from 159,000 people in October 2016 to over 1 million people in February 2017. Almost one year after the World Humanitarian Summit, we are also committed to reinforcing coordination among stakeholders and turning the promises of the ‘New Way of Working’ into action. Our work is making a vital difference for millions, especially in the most severely hit areas. But despite our joint efforts, it is still not enough!
I recently visited several areas across Borno State, which were previously completely inaccessible for humanitarian actors. Even now, we can only get to these locations with UN helicopters due to high insecurity on the road. In Pulka, a small town devastated by the raging conflict, I met Alhaji. He fled his isolated village 15 km north of Pulka, which was under the control of Boko Haram. Alhaji told me that when Boko Haram raided his village 12 weeks ago, they could not offer them anything since they barely had any food for themselves. Boko Haram killed 17 of his neighbors while tying him up with his arms behind his back and publicly whipping him. One night, he managed to flee to a camp managed by the International Organization for Migration with one of his wives and two children. While he is relatively safe now, Alhaji feels broken and has lost the feeling in his arms due to the torture he endured. Alhaji is one of the many people I met who described horrendous ordeals of abduction, violence and abuse, atrocities that have come to characterize the crisis in north-east Nigeria. Sexual and gender-based violence is also rampant here, affecting women and girls as well as men and boys.
Earlier this year, the United Nations and its partners launched the fourth largest humanitarian appeal in the world, requesting $1 billion to reach 7 million people in north-east Nigeria with critical life-saving assistance. And in late February, donors started answering that call, generously pledging $458 million to support the humanitarian response in 2017 during the first-ever Humanitarian Conference on Nigeria and the Lake Chad Region. Following a recent visit to the area, the UN Security Council welcomed the scaling up of the response, and urged the disbursement of funds to prevent a further deterioration of the crisis.
However, I am worried that today, two months after the Oslo conference, the political will and ‘can-do’ spirit are gradually fading away. Despite pledges, only 20 per cent of the funding needed for the $1 billion Nigeria Humanitarian Appeal has been received. Over the next six months, WFP needs $242 million to assist 1.8 million people – more than US$1.3 million a day. If funding stays at current levels, WFP will need to cut back on its life-saving support.
There is no magic wand to respond to an emergency of this scale. We need the most engaged, qualified and efficient people to run and further scale up humanitarian operations. And we need more funding in order to prevent a further deterioration of the crisis, where more people are pushed into starvation and are at the mercy of violence and abuse. The international community, together with the Nigerian Government, have an obligation to respond and must not turn their eyes away. History is scattered with lost opportunities and Nigeria must not become another protracted crisis. We therefore urge donor countries – those that are already contributing to the response as well as new donors – to redouble their efforts now if we are to navigate away from the ‘perfect storm’.
