Key Considerations: Post-Trauma Impacts in Conflict-Affected Communities in Northern Nigeria

Since 2009, the Boko Haram insurgency has become the most prominent source of violence in northern Nigeria, particularly affecting the north-east. The group’s activities, including bombings, assassinations, and mass abductions, have resulted in over two million people being displaced and a severe humanitarian crisis.^1,2 Clashes between farmers and herders over land and resources in central Nigeria have spread to northern states, intensifying the existing humanitarian crisis.² In addition, north-west Nigeria regularly experiences banditry that is characterised by kidnappings for ransom, armed robbery and village raids. The prevalence of violence has destabilised the northern region with severe physical, emotional, social and psychological consequences.

Trauma is the lasting emotional response that often results from living through a distressing event. This emotional response may harm an individual’s feeling of safety, sense of self and ability to regulate their emotions and navigate relationships. These changes may result in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).^3,4 In Nigeria, individuals who have experienced psychological trauma and who can be said to be experiencing PTSD from a biomedical perspective remain largely untreated.

In 2014, the conflict in northern Nigeria received global attention with the ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ campaign in response to the mass kidnapping of 276 female students in Chibok.⁵ The military action and the establishment of camps for displaced persons that came with this global attention increased Nigeria’s reliance on aid from humanitarian agencies.⁵ Despite the expansion of humanitarian services in the northern conflict zones since 2014, access to conflict-affected populations remains challenging due to the increasing and expanding security crisis. Humanitarian operations are hindered by inadequate service delivery as a result of the lack of strong and concerted advocacy for coordinated efforts across international diplomatic and humanitarian actors.

This brief examines trauma in northern Nigeria, comparing the biomedical framing of PTSD with the social science understanding of the drivers of and possible solutions for mental health impacts of trauma. The brief also describes the management of humanitarian service operations in the northern conflict zones.

The brief draws on the SSHAP workshop ‘Health and Humanitarian Issues in the Conflict Context in Northern Nigeria’ (held in April 2024), consultation with humanitarian service delivery experts and humanitarian researchers active in or knowledgeable about the region and its conflict, and academic and grey literature.