DROUGHTS, flooding and a shrinking Lake Chad caused in part by climate change is fuelling conflict and migration in the region, a new report said today.

Human rights group Refugees International called for the issue to be central to a high-level international conference on the Lake Chad basin next week in Niamey, Niger’s capital.

The report says that shrinking natural resources due to adverse weather are heightening tensions across communities and displacing people. It said that about three million people have been displaced and an additional 11 million were in need of humanitarian assistance.

Report lead author Alexandra Lamarche said: “For too long, insufficient attention has been paid to how climate change fuels violence and displacement.

“International responses to the Lake Chad basin crisis have singularly focused on the presence of armed groups.”

A 13-year insurgency of the Boko Haram extremist group and other militant groups have destabilised the Lake Chad basin and the wider Sahel region. 

The basin is shared between Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria.

Mabingue Ngom, the senior adviser to the executive director of the United Nations population agency, said that the Lake Chad region is facing “much more than a climate and ecological crisis.

“It is a humanitarian issue touching on peace and regional development.”