Women gather at a water collecting point at the internally displaced people's camp in Bama, Borno State, Nigeria, August 31, 2016. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde
GENEVA (Reuters) - Cholera is spreading fast through camps housing people displaced by Boko Haram militants in northeast Nigeria’s Borno state, the United Nations said on Wednesday.
Most deaths were recorded in Muna Garage camp on the outskirts of state capital Maiduguri, the epicentre of the Islamist insurgency that has also destabilised neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
A U.N. report said more than 530 suspected cases of cholera had been registered by Tuesday - more than three times the number reported five days earlier.
Twenty-three people had died, it added, up from 11 reported on Aug. 31.
The outbreak began late last month, and aid workers had already warned that Nigeria’s rainy season could spread disease in already unsanitary displacement camps.
About 1.8 million people have abandoned their homes because of violence or food shortages during the conflict, U.N. agencies say.
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