Boko Haram Victims Gets $13 Million from the UN

Over 250,000 victims of the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East of Nigeria now have a life line as they can now access $13 million lifeline released by the United Nations Humanitarian agency, through the Central Emergency Response Fund, CERF.

The release of the $13 million brings the total support the victims have received from the CERF to over $70 million, the Vanguard is reporting.

$27 million was allocated in  March 2015 to assist more than 1.6 million Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, refugees, returnees, and host communities in Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria. Also $31 million was provided in early 2016 to help 700,000 people in the Lake Chad Basin.

The CERF funding is meant to help many of the victims who have lost means of livelihood to the Boko Haram violence to support their families. The money is intended to assist them acquire needed seeds and tools for the upcoming planting season.

In a statement on Monday, Stephen O’Brien, on behalf of the UN agency, said the international community must take advantage of the access to vulnerable people to reach them with essential services and build on the CERF allocation to scale up the response.

Munir Safieldin, the acting Humanitarian Coordinator, also said, “The humanitarian crisis in North-East Nigeria is massive and alarming: 15 million people are affected by the violence instigated by Boko Haram including seven million people who need urgent humanitarian assistance.”