Netherlands donates €5.3m to IDPs in Nigeria

Coordinator of the Nigerian Joint Response, a humanitarian program in the North-East Nigeria, Hanna Van Schie, has disclosed that government of the Netherlands has earmarked the sum 5.3 million Euros to carter for the need of 176000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the North –East. 

Van Schie told a workshop on the Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs in Yola Thursday that with support from the Dutch government 4 NGOs in a consortium comprising Save the Children (lead), Oxfam Novib, Stichting Vluchteling/IRC and Tearfund implementing the Nigeria Joint Response (NJR), have supported people of Nigeria to overcome the humanitarian needs and hardships and to improve the standard of living in areas of food, security and protection in host communities and in IDPs camps. 

The Coordinator who is working for Save the Children in the Netherlands explained that since the inception of Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East in 2009, over 14.8 million people have been affected while 7 million are in need of assistance. She further explained that according to 2016 Humanitarian Needs Overview, only 8 per cent of IDPs are living in the formal camps, leaving the remaining 92 per cent in host communities supported with the limited and stretched resources of their hosts. 

She added that Nigeria government capacity to meet the need of all (IDPs) is being stretched, with limited humanitarian assistance only enough to reach the IDPs living in official camps, stressing that the crisis in the sub-region is slowly coming to the agenda of the donor communities. 

Adamawa State Commissioner for Border Integration, Abubakar Magaji who represented Governor Mohammed Jibrilla at the workshop lauded the efforts of NGOs in the state and North -Eastern region in providing relief assistance to IDPs. 

Magaji re-iterated the state government determination to work hard to ensure IDPs return to the homes as soon as possible to start a new life.

[vanguard]