UN: WFP delivers food to thousands of refugees on Nigeria-Chad border

PANAPRESS, 24 Jan 2015

New York, US - The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has begun distributing food to thousands of refugees who were recently displaced by the escalating Nigeria's terror group, Boko Haram violence and urged that it required some US$11 million to continue to meet those needs. WFP spokesperson Ms. Elisabeth Byrs, who briefed UN reporters late Friday, said the distribution of 159 tons of WFP rations started on Friday in the border town of Baga Sola, and it was also planning a first round of distributions for 10 days to more than 7,800 refugees from Ngouboua in Nigeria, of whom 4,103 are new arrivals, She said that the situation in the region had been deteriorating in recent months, and that just last weekend, Boko Haram insurgents pillaged villages and abducted some 80 people in Cameroon in one of the group's biggest kidnappings to take place outside of Nigeria. "This sparked fears throughout the region that the insurgents were gaining ground and expanding their attacks," Ms. Byrs said. According to the official, WFP was able to respond to the first wave of 6,250 refugees within 48 hours of their arrival, with an emergency ration of two days. Currently there are more than 13,000 refugees in North-eastern Nigeria at the Lake Chad border, according to the latest statistics from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The WFP spokesperson expressed concern over the impact this refugee migration will have on host communities, saying that, prior to the crisis, the November 2014 emergency food security assessment showed that areas within part of the Central African region were food insecure. "At that time, 32 percent of the population was found to be food insecure while the global acute malnutrition rates were above 15 percent, above the World Health Organization (WHO) critical threshold. "There has also been an impact on trade flow. Chad had previously exported cattle to Nigeria and most of this trade had been recently affected by the crisis, and the income of livestock keepers in the region has also been affected. "Also, maize farmers who exported their grains to Nigeria are affected as well and the decrease of trade has had a negative impact on Kanem and Bar El Ghazal‘s regions, which had the highest level of food insecurity in Chad," she stated Ms. Byrs added that many of the refugees were currently located in several hard-to-reach small islands on Lake Chad. In the coming weeks, the government and humanitarian partners plan to relocate them on a voluntary basis to areas where they can be reached. On Monday, Chad’s government said it would deploy troops to Cameroon to help fight the Nigerian terror group and keep the violence from spreading to other countries.