Help victims of Boko Haram, urges Miliband

The former UK Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, has said that the world was not paying enough attention to the plight of those affected by the insurgency waged by the dreaded Boko Haram Islamic sect.

Miliband, who is also the head of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), made this declaration while speaking with BBC’s Ishaq Khalid during a visit to Yola, Adamawa State.

According to him, international policy-makers and Nigerian authorities needed to step up efforts in helping victims of the Boko Haram insurgency.

IRC is one of the few international humanitarian agencies assisting some of the three million people displaced by the six-year Boko Haram insurgency. Cameroon repatriated some Nigerians who had fled to the country to escape conflict.

Miliband further said: "It's important for us to be in the places which make the headlines, but also important to be in the places that don't. The danger is that people are not in the headline will get forgotten until they end up in the headline for a wrong reason.”

Miliband said there was a "hidden catastrophe" in north-east Nigeria.  He noted that someone of the victims who had just returned from Cameroon were in desperate situation and needed help urgently.