Beyond the violence: Life in north-east Nigeria

Children are among those who have sought refuge from the on-going armed violence

These children have been living with their mothers in a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Yola, Adamawa State, in north-east Nigeria, for the past year

Many children had to flee without their families when violence erupted in their villages.

The ICRC has registered unaccompanied children and provided phone calls to restore contact between family members separated by the armed violence.

Volunteers of the Nigerian Red Cross and the ICRC distribute food items to internally displaced families in Maiduguri, Borno State.

“The violence in Nigeria is ripping families apart and causing immense suffering," said ICRC president Peter Maurer during his visit to Nigeria in May 2015. "It is one of the major humanitarian crises in the world today, with regional dimensions.”

Swyiman Sanusi was working as a teacher in Gulak until 5 September 2014, when he had to flee for his life.

His wife Maria, a mother of five separated from two of her children after gunshots rang out, managed to escape with their three children four days later. “When we fled, we were worried because my two children weren’t with us. We didn’t know where they were,” says Maria. They found refuge and were reunited, along with their two older children, in Mubi. After another attack, the Sanusi Family had to trek 400 kilometres on foot across mountains with little food or water to reach safety in Cameroon.

Making a living.

Nigerian women affected by the armed violence sew traditional African clothes in an IDP camp in Yola, Adawama State, where they have been living for one year now.

The armed violence in northern Nigeria has left thousands of people dead and forced more than two million to flee their homes.

The displaced have sought refuge elsewhere in Nigeria and in neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger, creating a regional crisis.

These children fled their hometown with their families to save their lives when their village was attacked.

Since arriving in one of the IDP camps in Maiduguri at the beginning of 2015, the children have not gone to school and have been wearing rags. Some fall sick. There is no money for clothes or medicine.

On top of struggling to meet their physical needs, victims of the violence have experienced psychological trauma from seeing their family members killed.

"Look at my daughter, she was three months old when her father died," says one woman in an IDP camp in Yola. "What are we going to tell her later on?"

Two patients injured by the violence in the region.

The ICRC has trained medical staff working in hospitals in the north-east to manage mass casualty situations and treat patients with weapon wounds. The ICRC supports 12 Primary Health Care Centres, mainly in Borno and Adamawa states which serve a total of 360,000 IDPs and resident communities.

Brother and sister Regina and Michael fled the fighting between the Nigerian armed forces and the armed opposition, leaving their farm equipment and cattle behind.

Like more than 40,000 people, most of them farmers, they trekked 200 kilometres on foot with little food or water to seek refuge in Cameroon. After returning to their community in Mubi, the ICRC responded by providing them with 10 kg of maize seed and 150 kg of fertilizer helping them to restart their lives.