Borno, Nigeria, July 22, 2016 – At least 40 people have died in the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in Northeast, Nigeria, Borno State as humanitarian catastrophe hit the camp.
International humanitarian organization, Medicines Sans Frontiers who made the revelation said at least 500,000 people are in urgent need of food, medical care, water, and shelter and called for a major aid response.
It added that aid agencies must deploy massive relief materials to halt the situation.
“Aid agencies must deploy a massive relief operation to respond to this humanitarian emergency,” said Dr. Isabelle Defourny, MSF director of operations.
The group said that on June 21, an MSF team observed extremely high levels of malnutrition and mortality in Bama, Borno State’s second largest city.
“Bama is now a ghost town with just over 10,000 inhabitants living in a camp, and like many parts of Borno State, it is accessible only under army escort”, it said, adding that nearly 1,500 people—the most vulnerable and sick—were then evacuated by the authorities and food aid increased.
“Yet MSF has still found that 15 percent of children in the camp suffer from severe acute malnutrition, and there have been about 40 deaths in the last three weeks’’, it said, adding that there are almost no young men or teenage boys in the camp in Bama—an indication of the severity of the conflict that the community has endured.
“An MSF team arrived in Bama yesterday to provide support with medical and nutritional treatment. Their objective is to rapidly reduce mortality and malnutrition among the displaced. The most critical cases will be transferred to Maiduguri. Improving access to water as well as hygiene conditions in the camp is equally urgent’’, it said.
