UN: Boko Haram region could become world's worst crisis

Without more donor support the emergency caused by Boko Haram will become the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, a top UN official said on Friday, as a massive appeal remained just a quarter funded.
The United Nations assistant secretary general Toby Lanzer said the suffering in northeast Nigeria and surrounding areas was the worst he had ever witnessed.
“I have worked in Darfur,” Lanzer told reporters, referring to the war-torn Sudanese region. “The scale and the depth of suffering that I have seen (in Nigeria) is unparalleled in my experience.”
Nigeria-born Islamist group Boko Haram has waged a brutal insurgency in the country’s northeast, with violence spreading more recently to western Cameroon as well as the south of Chad and Niger.
The UN has appealed for a $739m to cover needs across the entire affected region – known as the Lake Chad Basin – but has received commitments for just $197m.
“If we don’t engage in a much more comprehensive manner, including scaling up our emergency relief programmes, what awaits us down the line is the biggest crisis facing any of us, anywhere,” Lanzer said.