By SADIQ ABUBAKAR, Maiduguri –
Malnutrition in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in the North East of Nigeria has become one of the consequences and greatest problems created by the insurgency or armed conflict among children and breast feeding women.
The conflict has also led to migration and displacements of thousands and millions of children and women as well as youths and old aged in many towns and villages of the north east including others parts of Nigeria and the world.
Although disasters and insurgencies are no respecter of persons, yet women and children are the most vulnerable group affected by the conflicts as victims of displacement are faced with series of challenges and problems ranging from shortage of basic amenities such as essential food materials and nutrients, relief materials such as clothing, shelter, poor or lack of environmental sanitation, poor hygiene among other necessities.
However, investigation revealed that malnutrition on the other hand is also caused by inaccessibility of children to have access to quality diet and micronutrients supplements.
The findings from UNICEF showed that children in IDP camps in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States are mostly affected by malnutrition. It was concluded that the root causes of displacement and malnutrition has to be addressed so as to prevent further humanitarian crisis both in the three North-East-States (Borno, Adamawa and Yobe) of Nigeria and the world at large as the armed group over the years have threatened the security and general development of the north east sub region.
The activities of the insurgents have wrecked unimaginable havoc on the people, causing a rise in humanitarian crisis in the form of displacement of people, refugee incursion into neighboring countries, spread of diseases, gender and sexual based violence as well as food insecurity within the IDP camps and the north east at large.
The insurgency is also the menace and a phenomenon that cannot be ignored, hence, the prevalence of the insurgency in the north east has caused movement of people from areas of danger to an environment where they feel secured, thereby making them either to become internally displaced person (IDPs) or refugees.
While thousands of children have died and others are displaced annually as a result of armed conflict with causes of the death of children ranging from bullet wounds, bombs, and landmines injuries, inability to gain access to medical facilities as a result of diseases, insufficient food supply leading to malnutrition, and sometimes knife wounds.
According to United Nations, the activities of the insurgents, have further affected all aspects of child’s growth and development (physically, mentally, emotionally, and psychologically) and the inability to get sufficient food supplies which is borne out of destruction of agricultural activities, separation of families, the disintegration of communities, displacement of the people, as well as a lack of access to good health services, clean water coupled with clean and hygienic environment as a result of the insurgency are all factors that have aggravated the high level of malnutrition among children and breast feeding women who are primary victims of the insurgency, since 2009 when the crisis started.
Similarly, other socio economic challenges or hazards that children are exposed to due to malnutrition are diseases such as cholera, tuberculosis, malaria, pneumonia and diarrhea amongst others. While pediatric and other health services in general are often unavailable. The crisis has also separated families, splinter groups or communities, broken down trust among people and disrupted health, administrative, commercial, agricultural and educational services and activities which grossly all of which have undermined the foundation of the child’s life.
There is no doubt to say that the activities of the militants group have affected socio-economic activities of the nation, when the Boko Haram insurgency began in Maiduguri, Borno State as the epic center of the crisis and steadily spread to other parts of the north east and Nigeria as a whole, paralyzing socio economic and political activities with devastating effects on lives of the people, private and public property.
With the terrorist group emerging, the Nigerian states started experiencing a new series of crises due to the activities of the Boko Haram insurgents, an Islamic terrorist organization that has its roots in North-East Nigeria such as armed bandits, kidnappers, farmers-herders clashes, etc. Amnesty International had reported that the situation in the North-East Nigeria became a non-international armed conflict as of May 2013, due to several “factors including the level of intensity of hostilities and the fact that Boko Haram group is a well-organized force which controls territory and has a clear command structure”, emerging in other states of the north central and north-West that was linked to banditry, assassination and kidnapping or abduction resulting in high level of displacement of people.
The high number of displaced persons in IDPs camps is very alarming and require urgent attention to address the matter in the north east Nigeria, as the increase in the violence attacks has inevitably caused the displacement of thousands of people in the north east. Nigeria according to the Internal Displaced Monitoring Center has revealed that in the first half of 2019, about 142,000 new displacements were recorded, 140,000 by conflict and 2,000 by disasters.
Also, the UNHCR Global Trend and IDMC Global overview report show that most of the IDPs are children, women and elderly people. Almost sixty million people are forcibly displaced worldwide, of which 38.2 percent of them are IDPs.
From the above, one could safely establish that the victims mostly affected by insurgency are women and children who were forced to flee their ancestral homes and left to fend for themselves, while the men flee and search for greener pastures elsewhere.
A study conducted by UNICEF also revealed that “as a result of recent spates of attacks by the Boko Haram insurgents, half a million children have had to flee to safety in the past five months, bringing the total number of displaced children in the region to 1.4 million and each of these children running for their lives is a childhood cut short,” said Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa.
However, with the rising number of IDPs in north east Nigeria, little attention has been paid towards providing the displaced persons with adequate and convenient safe havens in the waves of attacks.
Even those who have access to IDPs camps are living in dehumanizing conditions, and many are struck with poverty, and malnutrition, especially, children under the age of five years as IDPs constitute the most vulnerable population.
Such vulnerable children are marginalized, disadvantaged, and disenfranchised from mainstream society., Indicating that the internal displacement of the IDPs and refugees are obviously a human condition that portrays vulnerability and the inability of victims to ensure their self-provision of their needs and protection at least during the period of their displacement.
Other causes could include natural resources, armed conflict or situation of violence, poverty, effect of climate change, scarcity of resources, political instability and weak governance and social systems
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