TLTP
NEW YORK
The impoverished West African country of Burkina Faso now has more than 1 million of its population forced from their homes by violence, said a UN spokesman.
Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) called the development “a tragic milestone.”
Some 435,000 of the 1 million were forced from their homes this year alone, Dujarric said, citing the statistics OCHA released on Monday last.
The landlocked Sahel country has a population of nearly 21 million, according to the Worldometer projection based on UN information.
As the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) put it, “1 in 20 people are displaced in the country,” the spokesman said. “Burkina Faso is now the world’s fastest-growing humanitarian and protection crisis.”
“The agency says that attacks by armed groups in the north and east of the country have forced people to move multiple times,” he said, adding many of the displaced are being put up by families.
“Host populations are at a breaking point as they share the few resources they have, while also facing poverty, strained health services and rapidly disappearing livelihoods,” Dujarric said. “The additional impact of COVID-19 is clearly devastating.”
Shelter, food, water, protection and health services are desperately needed, said UNHCR, which is appealing for more support.
Last month, Dujarric said the UN Humanitarian Response Plan for Burkina Faso was 424 million U.S. dollars, but only 22.8 percent was funded.
The country has been regarded as the weakest of the Sahel nations in the face of insurgents generally described as Jihadists.
