UNICEF’s Representative in the country, Mr Mohamed Fall, made this known on Friday in a statement to commemorate World Water Day scheduled for March 22 with the 2019 theme, “Living no one behind”.
Fall identified 1.1 million of those disadvantaged as Internally Displaced Persons, who are in IDP camps as a result of violence and conflict, noting that many of them are out-of-reach in remote areas still impacted by conflict.
“About 800,000 people are in hard-to-reach areas and 79 per cent of these are children and women.
“In Nigeria, conflict has created huge challenges for people living in the Northeast of the country, where violence has affected their ability to access water and sanitation, leading to diseases such as cholera.
“In the Northeast, 5,365 people were affected by cholera, with 61 dying in 2017, while 12,643 people were affected in 2018 and 175 died of the disease,” Fall said.
UNICEF Executive Director, Ms Henrietta Fore noted that children below the age of 15 in countries affected by protracted conflict on the average are three times more likely to die from diarrhoea due to lack of access to WASH facilities than as a result of direct violence.
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