Nigeria

Overview

The Boko Haram insurgency in northeastern Nigeria, surging banditry violence in the northwest, incessant farmer/herder conflict in the middle belt and a growing Cameroonian refugee population in the south have all culminated into a complex country crisis for the west African giant. Boko Haram, and its break-out faction ISWAP have continued insurgent activities for over 10 years. The Nigerian military, and the African Union Multinational Joint Task Force have had to contend with suicide bombings, military garrison attacks and arsonic raids on both soft and hard targets. The insurgency has further spread to Niger, Chad and Cameroon in the Lake Chad Basin with over 1.8m people internally displaced in Nigeria alone.?

In Nigeria's northwest, activities of bandits in Sokoto, Kaduna, Kebbi, Niger, Zamfara and Katsina states have displaced over 160,000 internally while causing about 41,000 more to flee to Maradi in neighboring Niger Republic.?Bandits engage in killings, kidnappings for ransom, cattle rustling and sexual violence in communities already at the lower ebbs of poverty and development indexes. The discovery of gold reserves in Zamfara means that apart from bandits, security forces have to also contend with activities of illegal miners and NSAGs in the northwest.

Violence between herders (also known as pastoralists) and farmers has continued for decades in Nigeria’s Middle Belt states of Taraba, Benue, Kaduna, Plateau, Nasarawa, and Adamawa. Farmer-herder clashes left more than 1,300 people dead and displaced 300,000 people across the country from January-June 2018. There is a lack of recent available data on the amount of people affected by farmer-herder violence.?

The intensification of Cameroon's Anglophone crisis has pushed more than 60,000 people across the Bakassi peninsula into Nigeria.? These refugees are hosted in Nigerian states of Akwa Ibom, Benue, Cross River and Taraba states. Many of the refugees are in need of food, WASH, health, relief and non-relief materials.

Latest Developments

28/05/2020: Continuing banditry attacks in Nigeria’s northwest have increased internal displacement, with no corresponding humanitarian response from some of the states affected by the crisis or the federal government. In Katsina state, some 600 IDPs are living on a football field in ATC Katsina, over 400 IDPs are taking refuge in a mechanic village in Bebeji, over 360 IDPs are in Yammawa, and more than 100 are seeking refuge in Tundun Baras. Most of the displaced come from Safana, Kankara and Faskari LGAs. They have been seen on the streets begging for alms or engaging in menial jobs to survive.?Lack of relief materials, shelter or food, along with poor hygiene conditions exposes the IDPs to various risks, including exposure to COVID-19. Katsina state has recorded 335 cases and 14 deaths as of 26 May.

26/05/2020: Fire burnt through the Muna Albadawy IDP camp in Borno state on 23 May. The fire killed one person, destroyed about 622 tents, and left around 3,576 IDPs homeless. Water sources for the 9,678 IDPs living in the camp were destroyed. ?This is the 17th and biggest fire recorded in IDP camps across Borno in 2020, raising concerns of congestion and fire hazards for the 16 IDP camps located in Maiduguri, and the other 16 camps scattered across Local Government Areas in the state.

21/04/2020: A Nigerian nurse working for MSF died of COVID-19 in Maiduguri on 18 April. As he was diagnosed only after death, there is increased risk of infection for the 60,000 IDPs in Pulka village camp where he worked, and the staff of University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital where he received treatment.? The lack of water and overcrowded nature of IDP camps makes it almost impossible to take undertake the necessary hygiene and social distancing measures necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The government of Borno state has instituted a 24-hour curfew to curb the spread of the virus.

ACAPS' team is daily monitoring the impact of COVID-19. Find more information related to the outbreak here.