Fresh attacks in Borno force people to flee their homes

Action Against Hunger’s Emergency Rapid Response For The Growing Internally Displaced Persons In Monguno.

Action Against Hunger has commenced emergency response to the over 25000 people displaced into Monguno in Borno, Nigeria. The massive movement of people into Monguno began after the Non-state armed groups attacked a military base in Baga on 26 December, leading to people moving from all across Kukawa Local Government Area (LGA) into Monguno.

Nonfood items (NFI) kits have now been distributed to over 800 families. The Action Against Hunger team has also trained 135 Community volunteers to commence the mass screening of children for malnutrition and subsequent treatment at 6 health centres supported by the organization.

Shashwat Saraf, Action against Hunger Country Director in Nigeria, went to Monguno and interacted with the IDPs arriving from Baga, Doron Baga, Kukawa, Cross Kuawa and also met with district head. They identified that food, Water, clothes and Medicines remain key priority needs. He remarked, “today, we have 90 of our team members responding to the health and nutrition needs, urgent WASH needs, but there is still so much that needs to be done”.

Following a second attack on Kekeno and Monguno Military Barracks on 28 December, many humanitarian personnel had to be temporarily relocated to Maiduguri on 29 December. This has led to a noticeable absence of humanitarian workforce from Monguno town except for a few organizations with some staff to continue essential lifesaving health and nutrition services. This has created limited number of humanitarian actors on the ground to respond to the needs and to even have an understanding of the scale of the needs. Shashwat said

Action Against Hunger has been providing humanitarian assistance to affected populations in Monguno LGA since 2016. We presently have close to 150 staff in Monguno covering Monguno, Kukawa and Nganzai LGA’s working on food assistance, WASH, Health & Nutrition and recovery programmes.