The government of Japan has contributed $236,363 (about N87m) to support the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) Nigeria in providing critical life-saving humanitarian assistance to civilians and humanitarian actors.
The fund will help facilitate UNMAS’s efforts in designing programmes to protect victims of insurgency and humanitarian actors from landmines of an improvised nature, explosive remnants of war and other improvised explosive devices through humanitarian mine action in northeast Nigeria.
In 2019, hundreds of civilians, including women and children, were killed and injured by those devices.
“UNMAS Nigeria highly appreciates the Government of Japan’s support to the programme and above all to the physical integrity and psychosocial wellbeing of civilian communities affected by the growing and pressing threat of explosives” said Lionel Pechera, UNMAS Programme Coordinator.
He further added that: “Japan’s integrated support strengthens our vital humanitarian mine action operations to ensure that critical life-saving information can be provided to mitigate the explosive ordnance risks amongst all children and adults across the three States in northeast Nigeria.”
Through this effort, UNMAS Nigeria will expand the decisive Explosive Ordnance Risk Education in order to prevent future accidents, he said in a statement to Daily Trust on Monday.
Pechera added that the contribution will be utilised to conduct in-depth studies on the influence of daily life behaviors on the risk of accident in different locations.
Following 2019 progress to precisely identify needs for mine action assistance with a focus on physical and mental wellbeing, 1.5 million people have been identified immediately at risk who are in need for life-saving assistance in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe.
Speaking on the contribution, Kikuta Yutaka, Ambassador of Japan to Nigeria said: “The project supports UNMAS’s actions to improve humanitarian access and to increase the provision of life-saving action in the North-East.
“It is in line with Japan’s Country Development Cooperation Policy for the Federal Republic of Nigeria, of which the promotion of peace and stability including reconstruction assistance in the Northeast region is recognized as its priority”.
He added “the ongoing global health crisis casts a shadow of uncertainty over one of the Nations’ most vulnerable region. Even in this difficult time, Japan is committed and will continue to offer humanitarian, non-military assistance through UNMAS and other international organizations to mitigate the effect of insurgency in Nigeria”.
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