Boko Haram affected areas

Since 2015, the conflict between ChadХs armed forces and Boko Haram has destabilised the Lake Chad region in the west of the country. Defeating this resilient insurgency requires the state to go beyond a purely military campaign and relaunch trade, improve public services and reintegrate demobilised militants.

UN Security Council diplomats have departed on a mission to the Lake Chad Basin in West Africa to see firsthand the security challenges and dire humanitarian situation there.

According to UN estimates, about 17 million people are living in the most affected areas across the four countries (Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon). Of them, some 10.7 million people are in need of immediate humanitarian assistance, with 8.5 million in north-eastern Nigeria alone, having been made witness to years of violence as a result of Boko HaramХs insurgency.

Vigilante groups in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad play a major role in the fight against Boko Haram, but their presence raises concerns. They make military operations less blunt and more effective and have reconnected these states somewhat with many of their local communities, but they have also committed abuses and become involved in the war economy.

Significant security gains have been made in the fight against Boko Haram, but the war is far from over.

An armed group attacked a UN technical team working along the border between Nigeria and Cameroon, killing five people and wounding several, the United Nations Office for West Africa said on Wednesday.

The United NationsХ chief humanitarian officer in the Sahel region of Africa said that Nigeria was key to saving the regionХs people from the ravages of the terrorist group Boko Haram, but that it needed the help of the international community to do so.

Unfolding catastrophe in the Lake Chad basin was named the most neglected crisis of 2016. Й An insurgency by Boko Haram militants has displaced more than 2.4 million people across the swamplands of Lake Chad, where the borders of Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria meet, and disrupted the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of others.

France has donated 15 vehicles, weapons and equipment to CameroonХs Special Forces as part of assistance to combat Boko Haram militants.

The militants С who have stolen cattle, raided markets and uprooted farmers С have created a malnutrition crisis in Nigeria that could spill across borders.