UNICEF will continue to provide assistance to millions of conflict-affected children in northeast Nigeria, despite an attack on its convoy by Boko Haram Islamists, the United Nations children’s agency has said.
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Unknown assailants attacked the convoy as it travelled from Bama to Maiduguri after delivering humanitarian assistance.
The UN aid team was attacked between Bama and Maiduguri, both in Borno State.
It said a UNICEF employee and an IOM contractor were injured in the attack and were being treated at a local hospital.
By 2014, Boko Haram controlled territory almost the size of Belgium in northeast Nigeria until most of it was recaptured previous year by the Nigerian army and troops from neighboring countries.
“UNICEF’s top priority is to reach the children”, he underscored, adding that the agency is not in a position to say who was responsible for the attack, only that a security assessment would be under way.
After the attack, media reports (not The Eagle Online) said the United Nations had resolved to suspend its aid work in Borno State.
He says most of these people have been in hiding for more than one year because of the dangers posed by Boko Haram near the border with Cameroon.
Troops escorting the convoy engaged the attackers in a shootout, forcing the gunmen to flee, Usman said.
“MNJTF (Multinational Joint Task Force) troops. have successfully. occupied Damasak”, the army said in a statement, indicating it was part of an operation to clear militants out of towns and villages.
Doctors Without Borders General Director Bruno Jochum, says 15 percent of children screened are suffering from severe acute malnutrition. “We absolutely have to reach more of these communities”.
More than 500,000 people are living in “catastrophic conditions” in Borno state, Medecins Sans Frontieres said this week.
FILE – Internally displaced persons wait to be served with food at Dikwa camp, in northeast Nigeria’s Borno state, February 2, 2016.
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However, Boko Haram’s trail of destruction has left at least 20,000 people dead, displaced hundreds of thousands more, and left Nigeria’s economy vulnerable.
