President Muhammadu Buhari and the Nigeria delegation Friday failed to attend a meeting where ways to end the activities of Boko Haram was discussed.<\/p>\n
The meeting which was chaired by UN\u00a0 aid chief, Stephen O’Brien, was attended by Chad, Niger, and Cameroon was held on the sidelines of the General Assembly.<\/p>\n
No reason was given for the absence of the Nigeria president and his team.<\/p>\n
U.S. and European Union diplomats said they were disappointed that Nigeria did not attend the event chaired by O’Brien on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.<\/p>\n
The meeting\u00a0\u00a0 appealed for help for millions of people in the Lake Chad Basin region forced to flee the violence of Boko Haram and hit with repeated droughts and floods that have brought malnutrition and disease.<\/p>\n
But while the radical Islamist militants operate out of Nigeria, and O’Brien said that is where most people have been displaced by their attacks, Nigeria did not send anyone to the United Nations event.<\/p>\n
The Nigerian U.N. mission was not immediately available to comment on its absence.<\/p>\n
A regional offensive by Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon earlier this year drove Boko Haram from much of the territory it held in northern Nigeria. But the militants have since struck back with a renewed wave of deadly raids and suicide bombings.<\/p>\n
“These (displaced) families are being used as ammunition because it is the children that are used as bombers in markets and in train stations,” said Chad’s Foreign Minister Moussa Faki Mahamat. “Trade is virtually wiped out in this area.”<\/p>\n
Several U.N. diplomats at the event warned that the aid emergency in Lake Chad Basin risked being forgotten amid other humanitarian crises in Syria, Yemen and South Sudan.<\/p>\n
Niger Prime Minister Brigi Rafini said the region was in the midst of a “genuine disaster.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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