(MENAFN- Qatar News Agency) Nigerian terror group Boko Haram's continued insurgency in Nigeria and surrounding West African countries, has forced 1.4 million children to flee their homes, according to new figures released by the United Nations Children's Fund.
The UNICEF report said that the terror group has uprooted 500,000 children in the past five months alone, UN news center reported. "Each of these children running for their lives is a childhood cut short," said Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa, in a statement. "It's truly alarming to see that children and women continue to be killed, abducted and used to carry bombs," he added.
The report said that the group had displaced more than a million children in northern Nigeria and more than a quarter of a million children from neighbouring countries. UNICEF, together with governments and partners in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger, is increasing its operations to assist thousands of children and their families in the region with access to safe water, education, counselling and psychosocial support, as well as vaccinations and treatment for severe acute malnutrition.
The agency's work in the region is almost 70 per cent underfunded, having received only 32 per cent of the $50.3 million needed for humanitarian efforts in 2015. Because of this, over 124,000 children in the conflict-torn area have not received measles vaccinations, more than 83,000 lack access to safe water, and over 208,000 are not in school.
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