The Humanitarian Affairs Ministry and Nigerian Air Force (NAF), are to airlift 7,820 tons of food items to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps and hard to reach communities in Borno. The communities and IDP camps, could not be reached by road, because of insecurity, ongoing floods and difficult terrains. Announcing distribution of the food items by air Sunday at Government House, Maiduguri, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Hajiya Sadiya Farouq disclosed that; “I request the State Government provide necessary information required to collaborate with NAF to drop food and non-food items in communities and IDP camps.” She lamented that most of Borno communities; are inaccessible by road due to insecurity and floods. She said the airlifting of food items, was to protect and support IDPs affected by emergencies caused by wars, armed conflict and terrorism in northeast. According to her, in addressing vulnerability of affected communities requires the adoption of a humanitarian-development-peace nexus approach. While warning on protection policies, she said: “Humanitarian action, social inclusion and protection policies, peace building structures must not be implemented as silo or serial processes.” Instead, she said that they are required to occur in a cohesive manner to ensure economic and social stability. “There is need for Civil/Security Cooperation to ensure the conduct of seamless humanitarian activities not only in Borno, but entire Northeast,” she said. She added that the Managing Director of North East Development Commission (NEDC) and Director General of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) will work with state government to provide required information that prioritises needs of IDPs in ‘hard to reach’ communities. While responding to airlift distribute delivered food items, the Deputy Governor, Umar Kadafur, said: “We’ve suffered a lot, because of this insurgency,” adding that the state has lost about 30% of its housing stock to Boko Haram. He said other property destroyed during decade long insurgency, include 5,744 classrooms in tertiary institutions, secondary and primary schools. He added that 220 health centres, were also torched by Boko Haram during the over a decade insurgency in the state. He assured the minister that government will partner with the ministry and other INGOs to overcome humanitarian crisis. According to him, the state government will provide an enabling environment for the humanitarian partners reach the trapped vulnerable people with life-saving assistance.
