Nigerian children, men and women travelled to Chad through the Lake Chad, losing their homes and even relatives after attacks of deadly Boko Haram sect, which is dominated in the North-east of Nigeria.
The displaced people have since settled in a refugee camp in Chad after being chased away from their villages by Boko Haram in recent attacks.
Among them is an 8-year-old girl whose hand was amputated after she was severely injured during one of the raids.
The camp at Baga-Sola, known as Dar-es-Salam (“place of peace”) can house 15,000 refugees and is currently hosting just over 3,000. United Nation Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is working with the Chadian government to transport an additional 2,000 displaced persons on the islands to the camp.
The Ministry of Public Health has posted doctors and nurses in Dar-es-Salam and added extra health workers to communities hosting large numbers of refugees.
No less than 17,000 Nigerians have taken refuge in Chad since May 2013, according to UNHCR. An additional 100,000 have fled to Niger and 37,000 to Cameroon.
The biggest influx into Chad – more than 14,000, at a rate of up to 1,000 a day – followed Boko Haram’s 3 January attack on the northeastern Nigerian town of Baga. Hundreds of people were killed and entire villages burned. More than one in five of the new arrival lack any form of shelter, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
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