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Expanding conflict and shrinking foreign aid have driven hunger in northern Nigeria to levels not seen in a decade, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Thursday.
The agency reported that over 17 million people across the region face crisis or catastrophic levels of hunger, with more than three million acutely food insecure in the conflict’s epicentre of Borno State.
The violence is spreading across a much wider area, forcing farmers from their land, triggering mass displacement, and severely blocking humanitarian access.
The crisis has intensified as terrorist groups expand into the northwest, joining armed bandit gangs that already terrorise local communities.
This widespread insecurity has doubled the number of dangerous locations that WFP frontline staff cannot safely reach.
Outside of major urban centres, thin government control leaves vast rural swathes vulnerable to constant militant attacks, crippling local food production.
Adding to the disaster, aid cuts by Western nations have hit Nigeria’s poorest households at the worst possible time.
Domestically, President Bola Tinubu’s economic reforms have triggered punishing inflation, which has further worsened poverty levels.
Due to these extreme funding shortfalls, the WFP expects to reach only slightly more than half of the 1.3 million people it successfully assisted during the lean season last year.
