UN pledges support for rescue of Chibok schoolgirls

Said Djinnit, the representative of the UN Secretary-General, on Thursday said the organisation was committed to efforts to rescue the 200 schoolgirls abducted by the Boko Haram insurgents.
Djinnit, who made the commitment during a visit to the National Emergency Management Agency in Abuja, said the UN was committed to the restoration of peace in Nigeria.
He said it was concerned with the current unrest in some states in the North East, pledging its commitment to support efforts towards the rescue of the Chibok schoolgirls.
He said: “We are in Nigeria to meet with relevant officials and discuss on the abducted girls and see how the UN can contribute to peace and stability in the country.
“We will like to know how we can help in the immediate release of the girls through the use of resources within the country and what the UN can also do to assist.”
The Director-General of NEMA, Alhaji Mohammad Sani-Sidi, who received the UN envoy, commended the continued support from the UN system to Nigeria.
“The continuous support of the various arms of the UN System to NEMA has indeed accounted for the improved human and material capacity of the emergency response of Nigeria,” Sani-Sidi said.
Sani-Sidi said the wave of insurgency in the North East in the past few years had become one of the greatest challenges facing emergency responders in the country.
He said the recent abduction of the schoolgirls in Chibok in Borno State had created a complex dimension to the crisis in the north-east.
He said NEMA, in collaboration with the Joint Task Force, had established humanitarian cells in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States to provide relief to affected communities.
Sani-Sidi said NEMA’s zonal office in Maiduguri, Borno State and its Gombe operations office had been mandated to sustain the provision of relief assistance to civilian populations in affected communities.
He said NEMA, in collaboration with relevant stakeholders, conducted a multi-sectoral rapid assessment in the affected states.
According to him, the assessment shows an overwhelming number of Internally Displaced Persons.
He said the host families of the IDPs had also allayed fears of insufficient seeds for the planting season, which further compromised the precarious food security situation.
Sani-Sidi said: “It has become necessary to ensure the urgent and significant scaling up of relief intervention in all humanitarian sectors, especially in the provision of food, resuscitation of means of livelihood and the reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure.”
Sani-Sidi solicited the UN further assistance in addressing humanitarian situation in the affected states.