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	Boko Haram violence in Nigeria has forced at least one million people to flee their homes by UN News, Reuters, agencies   Sept. 2015   Millions going hungry because of Boko Haram violence. (IRIN News)   Families driven out of villages, farmers unable to tend crops, food stocks of entire communities raided: Boko Haram’s impact on the people of Western and Central Africa lingers long after the rape and slaughter.   More than 5.5 million people living in conflict areas in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad, nearly half of whom have been displaced due to ongoing attacks by the Islamist militant group, don’t have enough to eat or else lack access to nutritious foods, according to the UN’s emergency aid coordination body OCHA.   “These are people who have seen guys with guns show up in their villages and kill their [families], or have had their villages torched and then they’ve fled,” Toby Lanzer, OCHA’s regional humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel, told IRIN. “The impact has been devastating. They have no food. They’ve lost their livelihoods. They’ve been thrust out of their villages… and can’t get back to harvest.”   An estimated 2.5 million people have been displaced in the region due to Boko Haram since May 2013. For most, it is an extremely challenging road back to self-sufficiency.   Some 234,000 people have returned to Nigeria’s northeastern Adamawa State during the past four months, following the government‘s recent push for the displaced to go home.   For many, there is nothing to return to. Houses have been destroyed, shops looted, schools burnt and fields lie barren.   Humanitarians warn that the trail of destruction left by Boko Haram, marked pervasive fear and insecurity, are hampering the efforts of returnees to rebuild their lives. Main roads are the targets of frequent attacks, obstructing markets, and supply and trade routes.   “This means that the resumption of livelihoods in areas of return has been stalled,” Kasper Engborg, head of OCHA’s Nigeria office, told IRIN.   According to Oxfam’s country director in Nigeria, Jan Rogge: “Our assessments indicate that 90 percent of the displaced across all the three (affected) states have lost all assets they possessed before the insurgency. Currently, only 10 percent of the respondents have indicated they possess some assets such as motorcycles, mobile phones, radios and jewellery, and mainly depend on their relatives and friends.”   While small villages in the countryside are most affected by the conflict, a recent assessment by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) said people in towns and cities also had little or no access to land and are forced to buy their own food. For the most vulnerable, who cannot afford rising market prices, there are few options but to seek help from friends, the wider community, or beg.   Nigeria has been the worst hit. Some 2.1 million people have been forced to flee their homes and 4.6 million are in need of humanitarian assistance, according to OCHA.   “The ongoing insecurity in the northeast means that farmers cannot access their fields to plant and harvest crops,” Engborg said. “Food and productive assets have been lost due to attacks and displacement, and raids on farms for food by Boko Haram insurgents are still ongoing.   “This is a situation that is not just affecting the displaced people, but the whole population of northeast Nigeria. Host communities in particular are seeing their vulnerability to food insecurity increasing.”   Displaced families have already exhausted their own resources and with thousands of farmers not able to grow staple crops, the main harvest season that begins in October will be below average for the third consecutive year, FEWS NET says.   As a result, much of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states could face a severe food crisis, while some areas, including Maiduguri, will experience emergency (Phase 4) acute food insecurity.   Cecile Barriere, deputy country director of Action Against Hunger, warned: “If we don’t do anything, the needs are going to be massive.”   As Nigerians flee and Boko Haram increasingly widens its campaign across the border, Chad, Niger and Cameroon have also been affected.   In Cameroon’s Far North Region, for example, more than one in three people are food insecure and one in 10 are severely food insecure, according to the UN’s World Food Programme reports. This means they often have insufficient food and certainly lack nutrition in their daily diet. OCHA says an estimated 545,000 people overall are food insecure in the region, a number that is three times higher than in 2013.   “Crop failure is expected this year as a result of the widespread insecurity,” Elvira Pruscini, WFP’s deputy country director in Cameroon, told IRIN. “Many of these farmers have been pushed away from the border and no longer have access to their land and livelihood means.”   In Chad, where some 140,000 people are in need of food aid, according to the WFP, the price of millet, a key part of the staple diet, has risen by as much as 20 percent compared to the five-year average. This is attributed to cross-border trade disruptions with Nigeria due to Boko Haram.   “There are issues with border closures, which means no free movement,” said WFP’s programme advisor in Chad, Nitesh Patel. “Small-scale agriculture for host populations has been disturbed and now [farming] activities won’t be able to continue until the next harvest season.”   Additionally, for those displaced Chadians who normally depend on fishing, moving inland away from the lake has meant a loss of their traditional livelihoods.   In Niger’s Diffa Region, where the majority of the country’s Boko Haram refugees have settled, an estimated 340,000 people are now going hungry.   The effect on malnutrition is already being seen across the region, with global acute malnutrition rates exceeding 12 percent in Cameroon, according to UNICEF, and 22 percent in Chad, according to the WFP.   “The situation is quite bleak, as whole populations have been affected,” Patel told IRIN. “The biggest challenge right now is having enough funds to respond to all those in desperate need and provide assistance.”   http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/BokoHaramspathofdestruction.aspx   28 Jan 2015 (reuters)   Scores of people have been killed and many others forced to flee to the mountains following a renewed series of Boko Haram raids in Nigeria, officials say.   The attacks by the extremist Islamists targeted the Michika area in north-eastern Adamawa state, where bodies reportedly littered the streets in several villages.   The bloodshed in north-east Nigeria has reached unprecedented levels in recent weeks, raising questions about security for general elections set for February 14.   The head of a European Union election monitoring mission, Santiago Fisas, said staff deployed to observe polling in Africa"s most populous country would not even attempt to travel to the north-east.   Adamu Kamale, who represents the Michika district in the Adamawa state government, also in the north-east, said Boko Haram gunmen had been going "door-to-door, killing people" for the past two weeks.   The insurgents are blamed for more than 13,000 deaths since 2009.   Women and children had been abducted and countless homes destroyed, according to Mr Kamale, who said roughly 70 per cent of the population had fled their homes.   Many had escaped to Adamawa"s capital Yola, where hundreds of thousands have previously sought refuge, while others have been hiding in the mountain range that borders Cameroon.   "Dead bodies litter villages... the attackers slaughter people like animals," he said.   Mohammed Kanar from the National Emergency Management Agency confirmed the raids in Michika, without discussing details of the violence. "People are trapped in the mountains but they are inaccessible," he said.   20 January 2015   Women and children make up the vast majority of the latest wave of refugees fleeing violence in northern Nigeria, the United Nations Children’s Fund warned today as it continued its efforts to provide basic assistance, including safe water, nutrition, health, education and protection services to affected children in the region.   “Children are suffering the dire consequences of the conflict in Nigeria, losing their homes, missing out on education and risking their lives,” UNICEF’s Christophe Boulierac told reporters in Geneva.   Boko Haram’s recent attacks on Baga led a fresh wave of refugees into neighbouring countries, worsening a humanitarian crisis in the region that sees 1 million people displaced from their homes and more than 135,000 seeking refuge in Cameroon, Chad and Niger.   In Cameroon, children represent 60 per cent of the 25,000 Nigerian refugees living in Minawao camp, and in Niger, women and children make up 70 per cent of the 100,000 Nigerian refugees and returnees.   Mr. Boulierac said a recent assessment of children in the Minawao camp revealed an alarming rate of malnutrition, noting that the UNICEF is working with the Red Cross to provide nutritional screening and treatment. UNICEF is working also with displaced children in Nigeria, where more than 65,000 children were being treated for severe acute malnutrition.   Mr. Boulierac’s briefing comes the day after Security Council Members condemned in the ‘strongest terms’ the recent escalation in attacks conducted by Boko Haram, and expressed deep concern that the activities of the Islamist extremist group, including a spate of shocking suicide bombings across northern Nigeria, are undermining peace and stability in the West and Central African region and some ‘may amount to crimes against humanity.’   Overall, Boko Haram violence in Nigeria may have forced at least one million people to flee their homes, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said today.   http://reliefweb.int/report/nigeria/missing-childhoods-impact-armed-conflict-children-nigeria-and-beyond http://reliefweb.int/report/nigeria/around-100-killed-boko-haram-attack-ne-nigeria-witnesses   11 Jan 2015   A bomb strapped to a girl aged about 10 years old exploded in a busy market place in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri on Saturday, killing at least 19 people and injuring more than 20.   The explosion rocked the market at about 12:40pm (local time) when it was packed with shoppers and traders.   There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Boko Haram militants are known to have previously used young girls as human bombs.   Civilian vigilante Ashiru Mustapha said the explosives detonated as the girl was being searched at the entrance to the market.   "The girl was about 10 years old and I doubt very much if she actually knew what was strapped to her body," he told the AFP news agency.   "In fact, she was searched at the entrance of the market and the metal detector indicated that she was carrying something.. But sadly, the explosion went off before she was isolated."   An attack at the market on December 1 killed more than 10 people, and the previous week more than 45 people lost their lives in an attack there.   In July, a 10-year-old girl was found in Katsina state wearing a suicide vest, prompting concerns that young girls were unknowingly being forced into becoming human bombs.   Statement by UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake on escalating violence against children in northern Nigeria: http://www.unicef.org/nigeria/   “The images from Northern Nigeria should be searing the conscience of the world.   “Some two thousand innocent children, women and elderly reportedly massacred in Baga. “A young girl sent to her death with a bomb strapped to her chest in Maiduguri.   “And lest we forget, more than two hundred girls stolen from their families, still lost.   “Words alone can neither express our outrage nor ease the agony of all those suffering from the constant violence in northern Nigeria.   “But these images of recent days and all they imply for the future of Nigeria should galvanize effective action. For this cannot go on.”   http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/nigeria-satellite-images-show-horrific-scale-boko-haram-attack-baga-2015-01 http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=16176&LangID=E http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/AtrocitiesCommittedByBokoHaram.aspx http://reliefweb.int/country/nga http://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/press-release/urgent-action-to-protect-children-in-north-east-nigeria/ http://www.irinnews.org/report/101059/how-boko-haram-brought-hunger-to-northern-cameroon http://www.amnesty.org/en/articles/news/2015/04/nigeria-abducted-women-and-girls-forced-to-join-boko-haram-attacks/ Visit the related web page
	Civilians despair as both sides break the Rules in East Ukraine by Moscow Times, Human Rights Watch, agencies Ukraine   15 April 2015   The United Nations humanitarian office has reported that 1.2 million people in Ukraine have now been internally displaced because of conflict in the country.   The figures, produced by Ukraine’s Ministry of Social Policy and included in the latest UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Situation Report on Ukraine, released yesterday, also shows that three quarters of internally displaced persons are registered in the five eastern regions, or oblasts, of Ukraine.   In addition, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says that almost 778,000 more people have fled from Ukraine to neighbouring countries, mainly to Russia.   UN agencies and humanitarian partners warn that access to food has greatly decreased since last October, especially for people living in non-government controlled areas. Rapidly increasing food prices and decreased food consumption and diet quality have significantly impacted the lives of displaced families in the country’s eastern provinces.   Aid agencies are also concerned about restricted access to social services such as pension and salaries in conflict-affected areas. A UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) mission to Donetsk province found that some school teachers had not been paid for three months.   Humanitarian assistance continues to be provided to people affected by the conflict, including primary healthcare, household items and cash grants but OCHA warns that funding for the humanitarian operation remains low, with the appeal for $316 million only 18 per cent funded.   Kyiv, 24 February 2015   The Humanitarian Community launched the Humanitarian Response Plan 2015 for Ukraine today.   The plan targets 3.2 million of the most vulnerable people of the five million estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance across the country. The plan appeals to the international community to generously fund the USD 316 million required to carry out a wide range of life-saving interventions including food and household item distribution, healthcare, psychosocial care, shelter, warm clothing, and basic education.   “Since January 2015 the needs intensified in Ukraine. The lives and dignity of people in conflict areas are seriously at risk. The community response has been incredible and crucial, but the crisis is beyond local capacities. It is estimated that more than one million people are displaced countrywide, and two million people still reside in contested areas, of which some half million are in underground shelters with little or no facilities.   All need support as access to services is curtailed. In many locations, the local capacity to respond is overstretched,” - said Neal Walker, Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine.   http://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/ukraine-2015-humanitarian-response-plan-revised-enuk http://www.icrc.org/en/document/ukraine-crisis-year-conflict-leaves-many-needing-urgent-help   December 24, 2014   Civilians despair as both sides break the Rules in East Ukraine, by Tanya Lokshina.   In the outskirts of Donetsk, close to the airport, where fierce fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed rebels has been ongoing for months, shelling has become a part of everyday life. Local residents refer to rolls of industrial plastic wrap as "glass panes" — having once replaced the glass in shattered windows only to see it destroyed in the next blast, they now resort to pulling plastic over the windows to keep them sealed "till better times."   Plastic wrap is even more in demand in the Luhansk region, where the damage to infrastructure in rebel-controlled territories is even more severe. When I visited the town of Pervomaisk a few weeks ago, the first question the self-proclaimed town administrator asked my colleagues and me was, "Have you brought any plastic wrap?" Apparently, they had mistaken us for long-awaited aid workers.   The scope of the disaster was shocking even to our experienced eyes. When a journalist headed in the same direction a few days later, I suggested that he bring some food or a few rolls of plastic wrap. Not because it was his job, but because he would feel awful arriving empty-handed.   Pervomaisk, 50 kilometers west of Luhansk, used to be a vibrant and densely populated town, with close to 39,000 residents, several industrial plants, over a dozen schools and a few colleges. Rebels took over the town this past spring and resolved not to relinquish it to Ukrainian forces, despite intense, deadly shelling that continued from late July through the end of August. Most residents fled early on, but some stayed behind, seeking safety in basements. Many died when they ventured outside for food or water — how many, no one knows for sure. People buried family members in their yards for lack of other options.   When things quieted down in September, the level of destruction was so staggering it reminded me of the Chechen capital of Grozny in 2000, the most iconic image of post-Soviet war wreckage of the 21st century. Some neighborhoods were razed completely; others were barely inhabitable. Nevertheless, with the Minsk accords signed by Ukraine, Russia and the separatists on Sept. 5 supposedly ending the fighting, residents, including families with children, began trickling back in. Having spent a couple of months in other parts of Ukraine or in Russia, they had exhausted their financial resources and did not want to be a burden to relatives and friends. Then in November shelling resumed, and it hasn"t stopped since.   Ukrainian forces are stationed just a few kilometers from Pervomaisk. Rebels fire on them from their numerous positions inside the town, next to schools and hospitals and in between apartment buildings, putting civilians at great risk. Ukrainian forces return fire, using even notoriously indiscriminate Grad multiple rocket launchers and paying no heed to civilians safety. As both sides engaged in the war fail to respect their obligation to minimize civilian harm, at least 10,000 civilians in the devastated town take the brunt of the fighting. Several residents of a wrecked nine-story building told us how the building was shelled in late November, and how when a repairman tried to fix the electricity in the parts of the building still standing the next morning, he was killed in a new wave of shelling.   Medics at the local maternity hospital told us that on Nov. 15 the hospital was stuck by a mortar shell and five more shells landed in its courtyard. Shell fragments flew into the neonatal intensive care unit, where a premature baby girl was hooked to an artificial lung. The nurses said the baby"s incubator was showered with shreds of glass and the child "survived only by a miracle."   People whose homes have been left without water, gas or electricity from the shelling now live in underground shelters. I interviewed a family with four small kids — the youngest just two years old — in one of those cold, damp basements. They"ve been living there for three months now.   The luckier residents have either electricity or gas, so they can keep their quarters just barely warm and livable. The elderly, however, cannot manage to go for water — just try lifting two buckets full of water from the tap in the yard to the ninth floor with the elevator not working — and so they depend entirely on the kindness of younger relatives or neighbors. A woman who works in a mercifully undamaged boiler house told us that, though unpaid, she keeps working for two things — the chance to wash in warm water and the free meals the rebel leadership provides to workers.   Many local residents might have starved if not for the bread distributed in the streets by the Cossack armed forces in control of the town, whose own food supplies also appear to be dwindling. Although viciously anti-Ukrainian, the Cossacks do not see eye to eye with the insurgent authorities in Luhansk, and the latter apparently don"t find it necessary to share the humanitarian cargo they receive from Russia.   Pervomaisk is not the only town in eastern Ukraine entirely wrecked by the war. Khryaschuvate and Novosvitlivka, just 2 and 7 kilometers southeast of Luhansk, respectively, have suffered just as much devastation. Whereas the destruction in Pervomaisk was mainly caused by Ukrainian government shelling, Khryaschuvate and Novosvitlivka suffered most of their damage from intense rebel shelling between Aug. 13 and 27, when the rebel forces were regaining control over these villages. Just like in Pervomaisk, numerous civilians lost their lives in artillery attacks, schools and medical care facilities were severely damaged, and much civilian housing was destroyed beyond repair. No matter which side carries out the actual shelling, civilians appear to suffer the most.   As the armed conflict continues, Russia and the Russia-backed rebels accuse Ukraine of not abiding by the Minsk accords and of a range of human rights abuses while Ukraine accuses its adversaries of the same. But mutual accusations and attributions will not relieve the suffering of civilians. All forces in this conflict need to meet their obligations to minimize harm to civilians and to ensure that the people of eastern Ukraine get the humanitarian assistance they desperately need.   * More than one million people are reported to have been driven from their homes by the conflict in Ukraine, hampering aid efforts and leaving the country on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe, aid agencies have warned.   The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates the number of people uprooted within Ukraine at 610,000, with refugees who have fled to neighbouring countries, numbering 594,000.   Ukraine’s pro-Russian separatists had signed a ceasefire agreement with the Ukrainian government in early September of 2014, raising hopes that an end to the conflict could be negotiated during the anticipated halt in fighting. Instead, fighting continued. The self-declared prime minister of the breakaway, pro-Russian Donestk People’s Republic declared the cease-fire “over” on Oct 20.   With the ceasefire failing to halt combat, Eastern Ukraine’s humanitarian situation has become increasingly dire. The UN said an estimated 5.2 million people in Ukraine were living in conflict zones, of whom 1.4 million were highly vulnerable and in need of assistance as they face financial problems, a lack of services and aid, and harsh winter conditions.   http://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/ukraine-winter-2015-seeing-increased-displacement-deteriorating-humanitarian http://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/report-human-rights-situation-ukraine-16-november-2015-15-february-2016-enruuk http://reliefweb.int/country/ukr http://www.osce.org/ukraine-smm Visit the related web page
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