US To Provide $40 Mln In Humanitarian Assistance To Nigeria - Pompeo

WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th February, 2020) The United States will allocate $40 million in humanitarian assistance to Nigeria, US State Secretary Mike Pompeo announced in remarks alongside Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama at the State Department on Tuesday.

"The foreign minister and I also discussed today the massive� humanitarian crisis that the conflict with Boko Haram and ISIS (banned in Russia) in West Africa and other religious and ethnic violence. We know that these issue are hard, we know that they are complicated, but I strongly encourage the Nigerian government to do more to protect its civilians, including religious communities and humanitarian organizations seeking to assist them," Pompeo said. "To aid in this effort, I am pleased to announce today an additional $40 million in humanitarian assistance to Nigeria."

The US Justice Department said in a statement earlier in the day that the United States, Nigeria and the Ballwick of Jersey reached an agreement to return back to Nigeria $308 million taken by Nigeria's former leader Sani Abacha.

The recent announcements come on the heels of the US decision last week to add Nigeria to a new list of countries facing a travel ban. On Friday, US President Donald Trump's administration added seven countries to its travel ban list, including former Soviet republics of Belarus and Kyrgyzstan as well as Nigeria, Africa's most populous country. Their citizens will not be issued certain types of entry visas, starting February 21.

For more than a decade, Nigeria has been suffering from violent warfare of insurgents, particularly the Boko Haram militant group that seeks to eliminate the Western system of education and establish Sharia law in the African country. In 2015, the group pledge allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist organization (banned in Russia).