Most fled the violence meted on the region by Nigeria’s Boko Haram insurgents.
“Take us away from this hell,” says Boussam, a mother of seven cradling skeletal goats in Niger’s Assaga camp, where thousands of desperate refugees fleeing Boko Haram Islamist insurgents are living in hunger, fear, anger and desperation.
She spoke to journalists in the south eastern camp near the border with Nigeria where some 6,000 people are crammed in United Nations tents in baking sun after being displaced by the violence.
The size of the camp has swollen quickly since people began arriving from mid-2015, having fled attacks that have engulfed the region as Boko Haram militants seek to carve out a hard line Islamist state in the north east of neighbouring Nigeria.
FOUR MONTHS
Conditions in the camp have deteriorated in recent months as food aid has struggled to reach its occupants who live with just basic medical care and schooling.
The UN emergency relief coordinator Stephen O’Brien, who visited the camp this week, warned that the raging conflict had catastrophically exacerbated the vulnerability of the region’s refugees, displacing people already dogged by chronic hunger, diseases and other maladies.
Anger is rising in the camp daily that more is not being done to help the residents.
“I have a feeling that everyone has abandoned us,” said Ibrahim, a refugee in his fifties, said.
Niger’s humanitarian affairs minister Lawan Magadji, who accompanied O’Brien on his visit to the region, admitted that not enough assistance had reached the camp.
“There is not enough food and medicines. Distribution operations are based on the neediest households,” the minister said.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has blamed a lack of finances for the chronic shortages.
Of the $316 million needed to finance humanitarian efforts in Niger, just under a quarter has been raised, according to the agency.
O’Brien has promised to raise funds at the two-day World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, Turkey that begins on May 23.
And despite receiving a warm welcome from children in the camp, O’Brien and the UN have not yet eased the daily grind of life in Assaga.
“I am ashamed not to be able to feed my family properly,” said Elhaj Moustapha, a once wealthy pepper-grower forced into exile by the Boko Haram bloodshed.
Mariam, a Nigerian refugee, accosted O’Brien and other officials during the visit to complain about conditions in the camp.
“It has been four months since we last received food assistance,” Mariam said.
But an influx of cash may not be enough to improve her situation and that of others.
Several charities have warned that tough security measures imposed by Niger’s authorities in its battle against Boko Haram have hampered the flow of assistance to Assaga.
Markets have been closed, the fish and pepper business suspended and whole areas evacuated, placing a serious toll on the area’s economy, already under strain from chronic shortages.
Abdou Kaza, the region’s military governor, insisted that the measures were necessary to cut off funds destined for the insurgents and would only be temporary.
But according to the UN, restoring normality to the region would be a herculean task.
Some 9.2 million people in the Lake Chad basin that straddles Niger, Nigeria and Chad are in need of food assistance as the Boko Haram insurgency, launched in 2009 and responsible for as many as 20,000 deaths, continues unabated.
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