UN seeks support to reach Borno rural dwellers

The United Nations (UN) agencies and non-governmental organisations have appealed for support to reach rural dwellers in Borno State.

According to a press release from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the organisation needs donor support to reach rural communities in Borno devastated by Boko Haram.

Arriving in Bama town, some 76 kilometres outside Maiduguri near Sambisa forest, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel, Toby Lanzer, said: “The suffering of some 30,000 people in Bama was as acute as I have seen.”

“The full extent of the agony inflicted on the people of the Lake Chad Basin as a result of violence is still unknown, but as towns such as Bama open to aid agencies, the level of destruction Boko Haram left in its wake is becoming clearer.

“Inter-agency teams are currently assessing more hard-to-reach parts of the state. We are increasingly emphasizing the relief-development nexus in a region that suffered from historical underdevelopment,” said the new United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria, Ms Fatma Samoura.

Borno’s capital, Maiduguri, is a city of one million inhabitants hosting 1.6 million people displaced by Boko Haram.