Humanitarian Crisis: CAN Cries out to World Leaders for Help

Humanitarian Crisis: CAN Cries out to World Leaders for Help

As world leaders meet at the United Nations at the ongoing 71st UN General Assembly in New York, United States, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) today sent Save Our Souls (SOS) messages to the western countries, world leaders and philanthropists across the world on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Nigeria.

This came as two US groups, the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative and the Stefanos Foundation, bemoaned the incessant attacks on ethnic and religious minorities in northern Nigeria by the Boko Haram terrorists and the Fulani militants, describing the situation as the “worst in the world.”

The President of CAN, Dr. Samson Ayokunle, noted that in spite of the devastation in Nigeria, being the worst in the world, it had not received the corresponding responses from the western countries.

Ayokunle stated this at a two-day capacity building workshop tagged: ‘Religious Freedom in Northern and Central Nigeria’ in Abuja, adding that the victims “are human beings and need yours and our assistance in order to bounce back to life again.

 “This displacement is regarded today by many international bodies as the biggest humanitarian crisis or disaster in the world.

“The most disheartening thing about it is that it has not received substantial humanitarian response from the world, especially, the world's most powerful nations as other disasters of smaller degree in other parts of the world.

“I am therefore calling on the world powerful nations to come to the aid of Nigeria to end the insurgency. Come to the aid of many victims of insurgency in many internally displaced people’s camps or homes who are naked, jobless, orphaned, maimed or widowed.”

CAN President said many people had heard about the activities of terrorists in Nigeria without documented statistical idea of the impact of their activities, explaining that the workshop was designed to intimate them about the gravity of the situation.

“This conference would afford us the opportunity and help us watch out against terrorism. This conference would also help enable us rise to the aid of victims of insurgency in many internally displaced people's camps all over Nigeria,” he said.

Speaking on their fact findings about the insurgency in the northern part of the country, the Vice President of the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative, Dr. Elijah Brown, said: “What is unfolding in the northern and central Nigeria is one of the gravest current humanitarian crises in the world.”