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Donors pledge $2.5bn to fight Boko Haram menace

Tuesday September 04 2018
Shekau PIX

A picture of the Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau taken from a video released by the group on October 2, 2014. FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

By MOHAMMED MOMOH

The international donor conference on Boko Haram in Germany has pledged $2.52 billion to help countries in the Lake Chad Basin to fight the Boko Haram menace.

A release from the meeting in Berlin indicated that the US made the highest pledge of $420 million.

Germany made a pledge of $307 million and Norway $125 million.

Others pledges were from Switzerland, France, Belgium, Finland and Denmark.

The UK, Canada, Luxembourg and Spain also pledged financial support against the terror group.

Humanitarian assistance

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Germany’s Foreign ministry said the aid would be disbursed “in the coming years” to Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon, where the insurgents launched frequent deadly attacks from its bases in Lake Chad.

The two-day conference was being attended by more than 70 states and international organisations.

A similar conference raised $672 million in 2017.

The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mr Mark Lowcock, thanked donors for the pledges.

Mr Lowcock said: “Your contribution at the Berlin conference will help us deliver life-saving humanitarian assistance throughout the Lake Chad Basin".

All stakeholders

The UN humanitarian chief, however, cautioned that “the crisis is not over, disclosing that there were still 10 million people in need of life-saving assistance.

“A quarter of the people we are trying to reach are displaced from their homes and the only means of staying alive they have is what is provided by humanitarian organisations,” he said.

The Berlin conference focused on humanitarian assistance, civilian protection, crisis prevention and stabilisation for the Lake Chad Basin.

Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the UN Tijjani Bande had before the conference, appealed to all stakeholders to redouble their commitments to the Lake Chad Basin crisis.

Prof Bande said: “The Berlin Conference would build substantially on the outcome of the February, 2017 Oslo Donors Conference on the Lake Chad.’’

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