Nigeria’s internally-displaced persons’ camps are transmitting worrisome currents around the world. This is because the camps are drenched in deprivation and death. The worst hit occupants of the camps are children, who are dying daily from acute malnutrition, according to United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund. In a frightening note – ‘Starving to Death’ – Geneva-based Medicins Sans Frontieres stated that six malnourished children die daily in the IDP camp in Bama, Borno State. This human tragedy should provoke a massive response from the authorities. They should mobilise all the resources needed to bring this catastrophe to an end.
MSF personnel, who were given access to the Bama camp, and other local and international charities, discovered that poor living conditions were prevalent there. Just like in the other IDP camps in Yobe, Adamawa and Taraba states, women and children have no access to water, sanitation, dignity, basic shelter, and most of all, food. Some 24,000 IDPs live in the Bama camp, with 15,000 of them children, MSF said. The situation has spawned a crisis, one in which 188 people died in the one month to June 2016 due to diarrhoea and malnutrition. The charity said it “counted more than 1,200 graves near the camp that were dug in the past year (and), almost 500 of which were for children.” This is heart-breaking.
It is unfortunate that the IDPs, having been rescued from the clutches of Boko Haram, are now wallowing in deprivation. Images of gaunt, hungry children bear a haunting semblance of those recorded during the humanitarian tragedy that claimed 258,000 lives – about half of them children – in Somalia in 2011, going by the United Nations estimates. In all, Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre says there are IDP sites in 207 local government areas across 13 states, including Adamawa, Bauchi, Kano, Kaduna and the Federal Capital Territory.
Experts note that severe malnutrition kills one million children annually worldwide. Most of the casualties occur in war-ravaged areas. While hunger affects all human beings, it is more devastating for children. In 2015, 98 out of the 450 persons who died in 28 Nigerian IDP camps were children, according to the Borno State Government. The camps recorded 6,444 malnutrition cases. However, the relief materials from international charity organisations and local philanthropists have been ineffective because of alleged corruption and diversion of donations. Last month, soldiers and policemen engaged in a gun duel in Maiduguri, the Borno capital, in their bid to hijack the rice that aid agencies donated to the IDPs. This is scandalous.
So, it is not surprising that with all the donor activities, our children are still starving to death. It is a wake-up call for the Muhammadu Buhari administration to step in and tackle this mess. Although it is good news that the military are rescuing thousands of more captives as the war against the jihadists intensifies, the burden of providing sustenance for the IDPs in their camps is another critical challenge facing the nation. The Federal Government, which voted N12 billion for the North-East Initiative in 2016, should wade into this matter, partner the state governments and international donor groups to stop the child deaths.
Boko Haram, a puritanical Salafist group, launched Islamic jihad (holy war) against the Nigerian state in 2009, using terrorism. The Boko Haram terror campaign has killed over 20,000, and displaced 2.2 million Nigerians from their homes and farms in the North-East, the epicentre of the insurgency. Because the mayhem has destroyed agriculture in the region, the United Nations has warned that thousands of Borno residents are at the risk of starving to death. Nigeria reportedly has one of the highest severe malnutrition burdens in the world.
Even before Boko Haram launched its jihad, Nigerian children had been dying of hunger and diseases. United Kingdom-based charity, Malaria No More, says that malaria is the leading cause of death of Nigerian children before they reach the age of five, citing up to 250,000 annual fatalities. A note by UNICEF states that 16 per cent (or 150,000) of the annual child deaths in Nigeria is caused by diarrhoea, which is interwoven with malnutrition.
“Every single day, Nigeria loses about 2,300 under-five-year-olds and 145 women of childbearing age. This makes the country the second largest contributor to the under-five and maternal mortality rate in the world,” says UNICEF. With a figure of 10.5 million, Nigeria also boasts a high burden of out-of-school children, according to aid agencies.
To reverse the development, international aid agencies have not only provided relief materials, they have also established medical centres to cater for the needs of the IDPs. They have donated insecticide-treated mosquito nets, drugs, de-worming tablets and provided medical services. But for these global agencies to do more, as they are doing in Syria and other crisis points in the world, the Federal Government needs to get its act together.
It can do so by coming out with a programme, and present an iron-cast case to the multilateral global bodies, seeking help in cash and kind, and volunteers to help stem the tide of juvenile deaths. The government should sensitise both national and international philanthropists to commit them to the cause of saving Nigerian children from disease and death. Children are the hope of tomorrow. We owe them a better life, including food, health care and education. The three tiers of government must therefore initiate urgent steps to put things right.
