UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Orlando Bloom (in black at centre) stands alongside twelve-year-old Eta Ibrahim (right) and other children who gathered around them near the Komadougou River, which demarcates the border between Niger and Nigeria, in Bosso, Niger, Sunday 19 February 2017. In late February 2017, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Orlando Bloom travelled to Diffa, south-east Niger, to highlight the ongoing humanitarian crisis in West Africaís Lake Chad Basin (Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon). Boko Haram violence has caused huge population displacements, leaving hundreds of thousands of children in a critical situation, out of education and at risk of malnutrition. Across the four countries, 2.3 million people are now displaced, making this one of the fastest growing displacement crises in Africa. The Diffa region currently hosts over 240,000 internally displaced people, refugees and returneesóincluding 160,000 children. UNICEF is providing safe environments for children in Niger and across the region to play, as well as helping them return to school, and training teachers to identify and support children traumatised by the increasing violence in the region. UNICEF is also providing lifesaving treatment for children suffering from severe malnutrition. ìThis visit has been extremely moving. Every single child I met is affected by this conflict and in desperate need of basic services such as clean water, psychological care and education to help them recover from the atrocities they have suffered and witnessed. They deserve a childhood,î said Bloom. UNICEF and its partners in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger have increased the level of assistance to thousands of families in the region, with access to safe water, education, counselling and psychosocial support, as well as vaccines and treatment for malnutrition. However, a shortage of funding and difficult access due to insecurity have hindered the delivery of humanitarian assistance to thousands of children i
{"Image Copyright": "\u00a9 Notice: UNICEF photographs are copyrighted and may not be reproduced in any medium without written permission from authorized"}