From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
An emergency security meeting to address the humanitarian crisis in the North east, was summoned at the Presidency on Friday.
This came a day after a United Nations report has revealed how children in Nigeria’s northeast have continued to be brutalised as a result of Boko Haram’s insurgency in the region.
According to the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Virginia Gamba, the report is a ‘first-of-its-kind, as it captures the impact on children of the security and humanitarian situation in the country between January 2013 and December 2016.
“With tactics including widespread recruitment, abductions, sexual violence, attacks on schools and the increasing use of children in so-called ‘suicide’attacks, Boko Haram has inflicted unspeakable horror upon the children of Nigeria’s North East and neighbouring countries.”
The report also said that Boko Haram during the period attacked communities resulting in the killing of 3,900 children leaving more than 7,300 others maimed.
The meeting which had in attendance the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Gabriel Olonisakin, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt-General Tukur Buratai and Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, was held in the Presidential Villa but it was not clear whether it was chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari or Vice President Yemi Osinbajo
A top presidency source who was privy to the meeting disclosed that the meeting was urgently summoned to discuss measure that would lead to lasting solution to the humanitarian crisis in zone.
The source added that the other military chiefs couldn’t make it to the meeting because they were not in town at the moment.