Ed Darragh

Patrick Kingsley reporting for The Guardian in Borno state, Nigeria. Hunger follows displaced people around north-east Nigeria, as Boko Haram and climate change drive millions from their homes.

““The narrative of this deepening humanitarian crisis in north-east Nigeria has been largely overlooked by the media, whose focus remains on the kidnapping of roughly 300 Chibok school girls,” says Orla Fagan, a spokesperson for UN’s office for coordination of humanitarian affairs.”

Women and children queue outside a Unicef nutrition clinic in a makeshift settlement in Muna, Maiduguri, which is home to thousands of IDPs. Photograph: Stefan Heunis/AFP/Getty

As Ali Kawu eases his handcart to a halt on a recent morning in north-east Nigeria, it is the first time he has dared to stop walking in more than 24 hours.

A day earlier, at 8am, Boko Haram militants raided his village. Kawu, 25, escaped with what he could – his…

Patrick Kingsley in Maiduguri and Sarah Boseley reporting for The Guardian spoke to ORLA FAGAN about the escalating Nigerian Crisis and the crippling affects of the Boko Haram insurgency.

More than 120,000 people, most of them children, are at risk of starving to death next year in areas of Nigeria affected by the Boko Haram insurgency, the United Nations is warning.

Intense fighting in parts of Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon has left more than 2 million people displaced, farmers unable to harvest their crops and aid groups unable to reach isolated communities. One small state in Nigeria has more displaced people than the entire refugee influx that arrived in Europe last year.

A Guardian correspondent saw dozens of skeletal babies at a makeshift camp in the regional centre Maiduguri. Many had plastic nodules stuck to their skull, to allow the nurses to attach them to a drip. Many children…

‘The UNs Orla Fagan, on the conflict between Boko Haram and the Nigerian Government, and the unfolding humanitarian crisis.’

Orla speaking to This Week’s Richard Crowley about the Nigerian conflict live from Nigeria on RTE Radio 1 earlier today.

Radio interview on the humanitarian crisis in Nigeria’s north-east.

A “forgotten crisis” is taking place in north-eastern Nigeria which the UN humanitarian affairs office (OCHA) warns could be the worst on the African continent. Seven years of insecurity sparked by the terrorist group Boko Haram has affected up to 15 million people in four states, leading to mass displacement. It has also caused a major food shortage as agricultural production has stalled. As a result, some 400,000 children face starvation. Dianne Penn asked OCHA Public Information Officer Órla Fagan about the extent of the crisis.

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Death in Banki town….

Shovels are almost as valuable a commodity as food in Nigeria’s north-east these days, because with a shovel you can bury the dead. This is the reality for hundreds and thousands of people fleeing from Boko Haram violence and suffering the effects of mass displacement. Such is the ensuing humanitarian situation that ordinary citizens are unable to recover from treatable diseases such as malaria because of their weakened nutritional status.

Farmers in the north-east haven’t returned to the land for three years in a row because they fear either attack from Boko Haram or the unexploded devices and land minutes

Fallow, fertile land on the way from Maiduguri to Monguno in north-east Nigeria. Photo: Orla Fagan

and land mines planted in place of crops across their farms.  The result is food shortages across an area that was the bread basket of Nigeria as fertile land lies fallow.

I travelled by…