Terrorism and War

newirin.irinnews.org - 2 November 2015

The Boko Haram insurgency has claimed more than 25,000 lives in the past six years.

Since 2014, it has escalated and splintered across a wider swathe of West and Central Africa, uprooting millions of people in the process. Where should they go? This special feature examines the options and explores what the future holds. . . .

. . . Millions of Nigerians have fled Boko Haram, but the violence follows them.

Scores of people have been killed in the last few weeks in a string of suicide bombings in the main northeastern cities where they seek refuge. Border areas where refugees flee in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger are increasingly under attack. So pervasive is the insurgency, it is even starting to strike the displacement camps where the most desperate seek help.

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A small girl feeds her parents cows in Kaduna State, where thousands of people displaced by Boko Haram are now shivering through the seasonal Harmattan winds.  Photo: Mohammad Ibrahim/IRIN

irinnews.org - BY Mohammad Ibrahim

KADUNA, 5 January 2016 (IRIN) - The temperature is dropping across northern Nigeria as the seasonal Harmattan winds blow in a haze of dust from the Sahara, blotting out the sun for days on end. It’s miserable at the best of times, worse still if you’ve been made homeless by Boko Haram violence and don’t have decent shelter.

“It has not been easy since we came to this camp 11 months ago,” said Mama Aisha, who fled Maiduguri, the main city in the northeast, and now lives 800 kilometres away in north-central Kaduna State. “We don’t have blankets to keep us warm.”

Aisha is just one of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have set up informal camps throughout the northern region, with little to no protection from the low temperatures.

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CLICK HERE - UNHCR - Mid-Year Trends 2015

CLICK HERE - UNHCR - Press Release, 18 December 2015 - UNHCR report confirms worldwide rise in forced displacement in first half 2015

UN refugee agency says 1 in 122 people on the planet has been forced to flee home

america.aljazeera.com - December 18, 2015

The number of people forcibly displaced worldwide is likely to have "far surpassed" a record 60 million by the end of this year, mainly driven by the Syrian war and other protracted conflicts, the United Nations said on Friday.

The estimated figure includes 20.2 million refugees fleeing wars and persecution, the most since 1992, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a report.

Nearly 2.5 million asylum seekers have requests pending, with Germany, Russia and the United States receiving the most of the nearly 1 million new claims lodged in the first half of the year, it said.

docs.unocha.org - New York, 21 December 2015

Madam President,

Distinguished members of the Security Council,

On behalf of the Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mr. Stephen O’Brien, I thank you for this opportunity to brief you on the latest developments in Syria.

Since the adoption of resolution 2139 in February 2014 and resolution 2165 in July 2014, this Council has been briefed month after month on the suffering of the Syrian people. We have repeatedly described in detail the countless and blatant violations of the basic tenets of international humanitarian and human rights law. For nearly five years, we have watched as Syria sank deeper and deeper into violence and brutality. And yet, no words can do justice to the despair and devastation that millions of Syrians experience every day.

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CLICK HERE - Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Kyung-Wha Kang: Security Council briefing on Syria (3 page .PDF file)