Humanitarian operations in Rann still suspended —UN

The United Nations (UN) said, on Saturday, that suspension of humanitarian operations in Rann, Borno, on March 2, was still in force.

The suspension was announced as the UN withdrew its workers from the community after a March 1 attack by suspected Boko Haram terrorists, who killed eight persons, including three aid workers, and abducted a nurse.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA) said Nigeria’s Humanitarian Coordinator, Mr Edward Kallon, was meeting with high-level government officials in Abuja in Maiduguri.

It also said that Kallon would travel to Maiduguri next week for assessment of the situation in the North-East.

The UN had said that it would conduct an assessment of Rann in the wake of the March 1 attack and evacuation of humanitarian officials, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported.

“At present, there is no aid worker presence in Rann as the 52 aid workers who were there were evacuated last Friday.

“Across North-East Nigeria, there are approximately 3,000 aid workers operating in 26 locations, compared to only a few hundred in early 2016,” the UN said.

It explained that the operational capacity of humanitarian partners in the three most affected states by the Boko Haram insurgency – Adamawa, Borno and Yobe – continued to expand.

The UN said the humanitarian partners in the three states consisted of 73 national and international partners.

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These were in addition to 31 international Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), 33 national NGOs and nine UN agencies.

Following the attack, UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, announced the immediate evacuation of all humanitarian personnel and the temporary suspension of all humanitarian deliveries in the area.

According to the UN, one other aid worker remains critically injured and another three are still missing, while eight members of the Nigerian national security forces were also killed.

The UN chief had said that at the time of the attack, over 40 humanitarian workers were in Rann.