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A World Bank report says about 20 000 people have been killed in the Boko Haram insurgency in Borno state in northeast Nigeria at a cost of about $5.9bn.
The report lays bare the extent of the damage since the insurgency began in 2009 and which at one point saw the Islamists control swathes of territory across the northeast.
Economy and business
It is part of a Post-Insurgency Recovery and Peacebuilding Assessment, an intervention programme involving the World Bank, European Union and the UN with six northeastern states.
Assessments in each of the states were carried out in areas including education, healthcare, water, sanitation, housing, municipal buildings, energy, environment, transport, economy and business.
In Borno, sources with knowledge of the report said on Monday about 20 000 citizens are thought to have been killed during the violence – a higher figure than previous estimates.
In addition, the majority of the more than two million internally displaced persons came from the state.
In some areas such as Bama, the destruction has been near-total, with only 20% of houses unscathed.
Struggling economy
The report also estimated parks, game, forest and grazing reserves, orchards, river basins and lakes have been poisoned in 16 of the 27 areas and 470 000 livestock killed or stolen.
The source close to the Borno state government said the report had yet to be approved by the bank and a decision was expected soon on funding.
But given the cost of the damage – about $5.9bn – and Nigeria’s struggling economy caused by the global oil shock, matching external funding for reconstruction could be problematic, the source added.
