Conflict Trauma: 8 in 10 Displaced Nigerian Children Suffer PTSD — FG

By: Michael Mike

The Federal Government has raised the alarm over a growing mental-health crisis among children displaced by conflict, revealing that nearly eight in every 10 affected children suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, while more than four in five battle depression.

The government said the crisis was no longer only a humanitarian concern but a threat with potential consequences for Nigeria’s education system, public health and national security if the psychological wounds of childhood displacement were left untreated.

Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Dr Bernard Doro, disclosed this on Wednesday in Maiduguri, Borno State, at the National Dialogue on the Psychosocial Impact of Conflict on Children in Nigeria.

According to the minister, 79.7 per cent of displaced Nigerian children have PTSD, 84.8 per cent experience depression, while 90.7 per cent suffer functional impairments that affect their learning, relationships and sleep.

Doro said the statistics provided measurable evidence of the hidden cost of years of insurgency, terrorism and displacement, arguing that humanitarian interventions could no longer focus exclusively on food, shelter and physical safety.

“A child who has been fed, but not healed in mind, has not truly been rescued,” he said.

He warned that children carrying untreated trauma into adulthood could place a substantial burden on Nigeria’s schools, hospitals and security institutions for years to come.

“None of this is a charity; it is an investment. Untreated trauma in a generation of children is a cost that returns to our schools, our clinics, and our security architecture for decades,” Doro said.

The minister said evidence from Borno further illustrated the severity of the problem, citing a study in Chibok which found that 41.5 per cent of children exposed to Boko Haram insurgency met the clinical threshold for PTSD.

He also referenced a continent-wide analysis that estimated conflict-related PTSD among African children at about 36 per cent.

Doro said mental health had historically received less attention than physical health because its symptoms were often less visible, but insisted that Nigeria could no longer afford to treat psychological wellbeing as a secondary issue.

“Globally, there is a bias towards physical health compared to mental health. Because mental health manifests with subtle symptoms, healthcare professionals and policymakers do most times ignore mental health. This narrative needs to change,” he said.

The minister disclosed that more than one million children in the North-East had been uprooted from their homes by conflict, while more than 7,000 women and girls had been held by Boko Haram.

He said the human consequences were visible in the behaviour of children from communities such as Bama, Konduga, Gwoza and Chibok.

“These are the children of Bama, Konduga, Gwoza, Chibok. Children we have all met, I’m sure, in our interactions. And they go quiet in mid-sentences, manifesting the very symptoms of mental illness,” he said.

To address the crisis, Doro said his ministry would work with the Office of the Special Adviser to the President on Health and other partners to establish stronger community referral systems through which distressed children identified in schools and displacement camps could receive appropriate care.

He also announced plans to incorporate trauma exposure into the National Social Registry, alongside economic vulnerability, to help government identify households and communities with significant psychosocial needs.

The ministry, he added, would support the training of teachers and frontline humanitarian personnel to recognise warning signs among affected children.

“A child spends more hours with a teacher than a therapist,” Doro said.

Earlier, the Special Adviser to the President on Health, Dr Salma Ibrahim Anas, said the decision to hold the dialogue in Maiduguri was deliberate, given Borno’s prolonged exposure to insurgency.

Anas said the gathering was designed to move the discussion from isolated interventions to a national policy response based on research and evidence.

She recalled the case of a woman who escaped from Bama with seven children but arrived at the Dalori Internally Displaced Persons camp with only one, without knowing what had happened to the others.

For Anas, such experiences demonstrate that displacement does not end when a person reaches a camp or another place of safety.

“Some have been born only in this crisis,” she said, warning that children who spend their formative years surrounded by violence may carry its consequences into adulthood and pass unresolved trauma to another generation.

The humanitarian dimension of the crisis was reinforced by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Representing OCHA, Ballama Mustapha said 7.8 million people required humanitarian assistance across Borno, Adamawa and Yobe under the 2025 Humanitarian Response Plan, including approximately 1.8 million children.

He said the 2026 plan identified 5.9 million people for assistance, but available funding remained insufficient to meet the scale of humanitarian needs.

“The wounds we cannot see must not become the reason we fail to act,” Mustapha said.

The UNICEF representative, Francis Otuochi, said an estimated 270,864 children in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe required mental health and psychosocial support under the 2026 humanitarian needs and response plan.

He added that more than 161,000 adults and over 23,000 persons living with disabilities also required such support.

Otuochi urged government to move psychosocial services from the margins of humanitarian programmes into mainstream child protection, education, healthcare and social welfare systems.

“Conflict continues to cause profound harm on children, including fear, anxiety, family separation, disrupted learning, and exposure to violence and trauma,” he said.

The North East Development Commission also warned that psychological recovery must accompany the physical reconstruction of communities devastated by conflict.

Representing the commission’s Managing Director, Mohammed Goni Alkali, the Borno State Coordinator, Engineer Muhammadu Umaru Maska, said rebuilding schools, hospitals, roads, markets, water systems and homes should be viewed as part of a wider peacebuilding strategy.

He said youth empowerment, livelihood restoration, support for internally displaced persons and social cohesion were equally necessary to prevent communities from sliding back into violence.

“Development should be regarded not as a mere economic activity, but as a powerful instrument of conflict prevention and peacebuilding,” Maska said.

The representative of the National Council of Traditional Rulers of Nigeria, Zanna Lawan Maina, District Head of Damboa, stressed the importance of traditional institutions in rebuilding trust, mobilising communities and supporting reconciliation.

The dialogue was convened by the Office of the Special Adviser to the President on Health in partnership with NEDC and the Borno State Government.

Stakeholders at the meeting agreed that Nigeria’s recovery from years of conflict must go beyond physical reconstruction. Without deliberate investment in the mental wellbeing of children who have grown up amid violence, the country could face a second crisis—one measured not in destroyed buildings, but in a generation struggling with trauma, disrupted development and diminished capacity to build peaceful communities.

Conflict Trauma: 8 in 10 Displaced Nigerian Children Suffer PTSD — FG