Germany, Nigeria, Norway, and the United Nations organised one of the year’s largest pledging conferences for Africa’s Lake Chad region (north-east Nigeria and parts of Niger, Chad and Cameroon) on Monday and Tuesday in Berlin.
Robert Cruickshank, who is in charge of humanitarian programmes in Africa for UK Christian charity CAFOD, told Premier the crisis started about ten years ago due to poverty, climate change and scarce resources like land and water.
“If you are a farmer trying to practice agriculture with very little water, you suffer and need to think about changing what you’re growing,” he said.
“[If you are] somebody who raises cattle, goats or camels, you need water for your very existence and as that has diminished, making a living in that area has become harder.”
According to CAFOD, the crisis that has impacted 11 million people and displaced 2 million has been made worse by religious conflict.
Cruickshank added: “Christians and Muslims have lived peacefully together for many decades but people are now exploiting religious differences around the access to resources.
“They’ve turned what essentially is a conflict about access to resources into a religious conflict.”
He said CAFOD has been working with both Muslim and Christians to bring about peace.
The high-level conference focuses on humanitarian assistance, civilian protection, crisis prevention and…
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