3,000 Children Separated from Their Parents at Bama IDP Camp, Says UNICEF

  •Seeing an average of 140 outpatients a day

By Kasim Sumaina

The United Nation’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has disclosed that it has identified three thousand children who have become separated from their families at the Internally Displaced Persons Camp located at Bama in Borno State.

UNICEF, in a statement made available to journalists on Friday in Abuja, revealed that it has started to register the children with the aim of trying to trace their families.

According to the statement signed by its Chief of Communication, Doune Porter, “We have provided health and nutrition support for approximately 19,000 people and since May, UNICEF and Borno State Primary Health Care Development Agency have had a permanent primary health care presence in Bama.”

Porter said: “Primarily, in the IDP camp in the town that houses 25,000 people who have been displaced by the conflict, of these, 15,000 are children. The town of Bama has been accessible to humanitarian assistance since March 2016 and we are working with partners on ground as response to the humanitarian situation in Bama, Borno State.”

The statement read further: “We are seeing an average of 140 outpatients a day, providing treatment primarily for malaria, respiratory infections and diarrhea; screening for malnutrition and treating severely malnourished children, as well as providing Vitamin A, micro-nutrient supplements and de-worming tablets.”

She revealed that most recent data available from the team on the ground, which does not have regular means of communication, show that during the period 3 April – 31 May 2016, 323 children were admitted for Severe Acute Malnutition (SAM), an average of six new cases per day.

Further Details Later