The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) expressed alarm on Friday that the escalating violence across the Lake Chad Basin — a region comprising parts of Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria — is driving a sharp rise in forced displacement and insecurity. This situation threatens to undo the region's recent fragile stabilization. Currently, 8.2 million people in the region require humanitarian assistance, and more than 3.5 million are displaced, including approximately 323,000 refugees.
“The security situation has recently deteriorated sharply, with recorded incidents rising by 80 percent between January 2024 and April 2026,” said Andrew Wyllie, UNHCR Deputy Director for the West and Central Africa Bureau, in a statement to journalists in Geneva on Friday.
“Between September 2025 and May 2026 alone, nearly 1,800 security incidents and more than 5,700 fatalities were recorded across the Basin.”
These incidents include attacks on civilians, killings, kidnappings, explosions, clashes between armed groups, and raids on villages.
Wyllie stressed that Borno State in northeast Nigeria remains the epicenter of the crisis, where repeated attacks by non-state armed groups, military operations, and insecurity along roads and displacement routes are uprooting families and severely limiting humanitarian access.
However, the crisis is expanding beyond its typical epicenter.
“The ripple effects extend beyond the northeast, as displacement, insecurity and competition over scarce resources increasingly spill into other regions, including the northwest and the so-called middle belt, deepening fragilities,” he said.
According to UNHCR, since January 2026, more than 77,500 people have been displaced across the four countries. This includes over 16,000 refugees who fled attacks in northeast Nigeria and recently crossed into Niger’s Diffa region, where the UN agency and its partners are helping to identify urgent needs, register new arrivals, monitor protection risks, and provide life-saving assistance.
“Violence is increasingly having cross-border consequences, with attacks in one country rapidly triggering displacement in another,” Wyllie said.
“In Cameroon’s Far North, persistent attacks, abductions and village-level violence continue to drive chronic insecurity and new displacement.”
He added that recurrent attacks and military operations in Chad’s Lac Province have displaced some 60,000 people since a state of emergency was declared in May following an attack on military installations.
“Displaced people and returnees are now particularly exposed in areas with limited protection services and few safe options to move. Civilians are bearing the brunt of the crisis,” the UNHCR official said.
According to recent protection monitoring in affected areas of the Lake Chad Basin, one in five households report that they no longer feel safe in their community, reflecting the extent to which insecurity prevails.
Vulnerable groups are particularly at risk. Women and girls are facing an increased risk of violence, yet specialized services remain critically under-resourced. Around half of the children in the hardest-hit areas are out of school, a figure that rises to over 78 percent in Chad’s Lac Province. This puts them at risk of various forms of protection violations.
Single-parent households, older people, and people with disabilities also face heightened risks, as repeated displacement further erodes their already limited support networks.
UNHCR is collaborating with local and national authorities across all four countries in the region to assist people fleeing violence, monitor risks, and support new arrivals.
"However, the response is struggling to keep pace with the scale of the needs," Wyllie said.
UNHCR urgently needs US$29 million through December 2026 to sustain operations, maintain critical protection and assistance in high-risk areas, and support government-led regional stabilization efforts.
The UN agency warns that without timely and flexible support, protection gaps will widen, displacement will continue to spread across borders, and the risk of a more entrenched regional crisis will increase.
“The trajectory remains deeply concerning, but it is still reversible with sustained support now,” Wyllie said.