President Muhammadu Buhari has described the number of IDPs in northeastern Nigeria as disheartening.
Many of them were displaced due to activities of Boko Haram terrorists in the country.
The Nigerian president made the statement on Monday at the opening of high level plenary on Addressing Movements of Refugees and Migrants at the UN Headquarters in New York.
He said over 600,000 people have turned refugees in neighbouring countries, with another two million displaced within the northeast.
President Buhari, however, expressed concern that the refugee problem is coming at a time the world economy is shrinking.
The President pledged Nigeria’s commitment to working with the international community to address the issues of movements of refugees and migrants.
He also promised that his administration would make efforts to meet the immediate needs of the Internally Displaced People.
“Any discuss of refugees and migrants in the case of Nigeria will be incomplete without reference to our Internally Displaced Persons, victims of Boko Haram’s terrible atrocities.
“The Boko Haram insurgency has caused a huge refugee problem of an estimated 600,000 persons for Nigeria’s neighbouring nations.
“We are making concerted efforts to meet our citizens’ immediate humanitarian needs by reducing their risk and vulnerability and increasing their resilience through vocational training and skills acquisition programmes, particularly for IDPs in camps, ” he told world leaders.
Muhammadu Buhari says globalisation should mean free movement of goods, services and people.
He listed some other interventions of the government to include; the Presidential Intervention Committee on Rehabilitation of the North-East; the Victims Support Fund; the Safe Schools Initiative and the proposed North-East Development Commission currently undergoing legislative process.
President Buhari also pointed out that in order to find a lasting solution to the regional challenge, Nigeria in collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, recently hosted a regional conference on displacement of persons within the framework of Regional Protection Dialogue on the Lake Chad Basin.
The President further told the gathering that if the meeting do not find solution to the current migrant crisis, the gathering would have been another jamboree.
The situation in Nigeria’s northeast has drawn huge attention, with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) saying there is grave humanitarian crisis that requires immediate response from international community.
The UN Agency warned of worsening condition of children around the Lake Chad who face acute malnutrition.
It also explained that of the 475,000 deemed at risk, 49,000 in Borno State will die in 2014 if they do not receive treatment.
As a result of the growing crisis, the agency has been forced to review its funding needs to $308 million to help support people affected by Boko Haram in four countries that border Lake Chad – Chad, Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon.
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