Courtney McGrailThe Bishop of Maiduguri in Nigeria has appealed for material and financial support so that displaced people and refugees from Boko Haram violence can be helped.
“Security has improved thanks to the efforts of the military who are present here and the attacks of Boko Haram have declined”, Dr Oliver Dash Doeme said, explaining that with about 60,000 internal refugees in the diocese, help is urgently needed.
“We have two categories of people to help,” he said, “those who are still displaced and those who have returned to their villages of origin but do not have anything because everything has been destroyed by the devastating fury of Boko Haram.”
Explaining that the displaced Nigerians lack both food and work, he pleaded for “concrete help from the international community, so that the Nigerian youth do not grow up in ignorance and illiteracy”, adding, “there are no basic necessities such as drinking water, food and medicines”.
Maiduguri is the Nigerian diocese worst affected diocese by Boko Haram’s terror campaigns. 150,000 people have been killed in the diocese over the past six years, with over 50 churches destroyed.