After two years of a scorched-earth campaign by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram, northeast Nigeria faces a “severe hunger ” emergency, says the LA Times. Up to 50,000 children could starve and 250,000 more are dealing with extreme malnutrition, according to UNICEF. And yet before Boko Haram, northeast Nigeria was considered the country’s breadbasket, rich in maize and millet, as well as vegetables.
Today, all 280 food markets in Borno state, in the northeast of the country, have been closed. There are plenty of fish in Lake Chad, but people are too frightened to put out nets after Boko Haram slit the throats of a group of fishermen walking on the road, “tying them up and heaving their body into the water,” says the Times.
“We lost our farmlands and produce to Boko Haram and [were] reduced to a life of begging. We left our produce on the farm, in silos and stores in the market,” said Umar Bate, who heads the farmers’ union in the town of Doron Baga on Lake Chad. “But all that is gone, we have nothing left.” Bate told the Times that 250 of the 7,520 farmers in his union have died in the last two years due to the lack of food and other supplies triggered by Boko Haram’s attacks. In Doron Baga and surrounding villages it’s estimated that the terrorists have killed 2,000 people.
In total, the group has forced more than 1.4 million people to leave their homes and farms. Of the 4.4 million people who have been affected by the crisis, about half cannot be reached by humanitarian aid because it isn’t safe for relief workers to travel to them.