Luis Eguiluz, the Head of mission for Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders, MSF, in Nigeria has lamented what he termed the “deteriorating situation” of the Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, in the North East.
Eguiluz explained that IDPs were facing challenges while living in isolated enclaves controlled by the military in the North East of the country.
In an interview with DAILY POST, Eguiluz said, “The situation in northeast Nigeria is deteriorating after years of conflict.
“It may not have hit headlines in the same way as a few years ago, but the humanitarian situation in northeast Nigeria, where about 1.7 million people have been displaced, is deteriorating.
On the current situation of things as it concerns the ongoing war and humanitarian needs, he said, “The long-lasting conflict between non-state armed groups and the military continues to displace more and more people, who are arriving to a series of garrison towns with very limited capacity to absorb new arrivals. Security perimeters in these enclaves remain very restricted, and while assistance continues to be provided by aid organizations, it has been of low standards. This has an even greater impact when you have more people in need.
“All sectors of aid delivery have been affected, food distribution, water availability and shelter capacity. Even health provision is fragile in some locations. Some areas of the enclaves have problems with food supply, despite a wide change from general to targeted distributions.
“Actors who were key in the delivery of water have now quit and, overall, there is a lack of senior humanitarian workers in the more remote locations.
“Donor fatigue, however, does not seem to be the problem. Funding keeps coming and nearly one hundred national and international NGOs are working in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state. The challenge for many organizations is to find implementing partners and delivering programmes outside of the city.
“A large number of people are stuck in areas which are not accessible to humanitarian organizations, with little information about what their needs may be. The problems in northeast Nigeria are changing, instead of being solved. Last year in the town of Pulka, close to the border with Cameroon, several hundred Internally Displaced People (IDPs) were living in extremely precarious conditions inside the compound where we run a hospital.”
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