Boko Haram: UN calls for psychological support, rehabilitation for victims

The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Assistant High Commissioner, Mr Volker Türk, has called for immediate psychological support and rehabilitation of survivors of insurgency in Nigeria.


Türk, who also serves as the Director of International Protection, made the appeal in his opening remarks at the Lake Chad Regional Protection Dialogue on Wednesday in Abuja.
He explained that camp management needs to be transformed from military to civilian administration; and community based protection needs to be strengthened.

He maintained that as the situation in the North East improves, adequate provisions should be made for those returning to get humanitarian assistance and protection so as to rebuild their lives.

``As access is restored, we have been confronted with new and harsh humanitarian and protection realities.
``Despite improved access to part of northern Nigeria, insurgency has intensified in the border areas of Niger and Chad, further threatening the region's fragile stability and worsening an already complex humanitarian situation,’’ he said.

The director noted that areas in north-western Cameroon also remain fragile.

He said that counter-insurgency measures are forcing governments to relocate communities to safer locations.

``Livelihoods, including from cross-border trading, continue to be severely jeopardised, and the social connectedness among communities has been badly damaged.

``The intensity and brutality of the violence that has characterised this conflict inside Nigeria and throughout the Lake Chad region has fomented fear, suspicious, mistrust and stigma.

``This has both created and widened ethnic, religious, political and geographical division," Türk said.

He decried the fact that in many communities, the social fabric is eroding while relations were deteriorating between citizens and government, ethnic and religious groups, as well as communities and even extended families.

``This presents new challenges for the leadership in the countries affected as well as for future recovery and development," he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the three-day Regional Protection Dialogue on the Lake Chad Basin had senior government officials from Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad in attendance.

A comminique is expected at the end of the conference on the regional action plan to protect, rehabilitate and resettle those affected and displaced by the insurgency in the region.