At least 2 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Nigeria's northeast region have recently returned home, a UN official said Wednesday.
This is due to the progress recorded in the counterinsurgency operations of the military in that part of the country, said Mark Lowcock, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, during a visit to Maiduguri, capital of the northeastern state of Borno.
Lowcock, also the emergency relief coordinator and head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs since 2017, said the IDPs were resettled in their ancestral homes.
This was a sequel to the combined efforts of the Nigerian government, the military, and humanitarian organizations to end the long suffering of the people due to terrorism by Boko Haram, the UN official said.
He urged an enhancement of the stabilization and recovery process, while expressing serious concerns over the sufferings of the people affected.
Lowcock also suggested ways of addressing the problems, including a further combined response involving the military and humanitarian agencies in the northeast of Nigeria.
"We all want to see stabilization and recovery. I do agree that we need to build more trust," he said, noting there are about 1.8 million people who are still in need of humanitarian support in that region.
SOURCE: Xinhua
