The European Commission has announced an additional €12.5m in humanitarian aid to support people displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon as they face a deteriorating humanitarian crisis.
The commission said the emergency assistance would help vulnerable populations in the Lake Chad region, noting that €9m will be provided to support people in Nigeria, €2m in Cameroon and €1.5m in Niger.
A statement from the EC on Friday in Abuja, said the new funding comes as violence by the terrorist group Boko Haram has severely destabilised the Lake Chad region, causing the displacement of millions of people.
“When travelling to the region last month, I witnessed the plight of people in the Lake Chad Basin. Millions have been displaced and the number of those struggling to find food is increasingly alarming. The situation in Nigeria is especially dramatic,” it quoted the Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, Christos Stylianides, as saying.
The EU aid comes on top of the €58m previously allocated to the Lake Chad Basin crisis, bringing overall EU humanitarian aid to over €70m for the region in 2016.
The European Union stated that it had provided assistance to local, host and displaced populations in various humanitarian aid sectors in recent years.
It said its total humanitarian aid to populations in the Lake Chad basin and in the Sahel in 2016 is €216.2m.
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