Boko Haram affected areas

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.

Poverty, conflict and climate change will leave 15 million people across Africa's Sahel belt in need of life-saving aid next year, the United Nations said as it launched a record $2.7 billion humanitarian appeal for the region in 2017.

Suspected Boko Haram militants launched three attacks in northern Cameroon within 24 hours, including a thwarted suicide strike on a camp for people who have been displaced by the conflict, security sources said on Tuesday. The Islamist militant group is based in northeastern Nigeria but regularly carries out raids in neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger, prompting the four countries plus Benin to create a 10,000-strong joint task force.

Up to a million people around West Africa's Lake Chad are cut off from humanitarian aid by Boko Haram despite a regional military offensive against the Islamist militants, a United Nations official said on Tuesday.

CameroonХs military campaign against the Boko Haram insurgency started late but has met with partial success. To consolidate gains and bring lasting peace to the Far North, the government must now shift to long-term socioeconomic development, countering religious radicalism and reinforcing public services.

In Nigeria, 75,000 children risk dying in Тa few monthsУ as hunger grips the countryХs ravaged north-east in the wake of the Boko Haram insurgency, the United Nations warned on Tuesday.