MAIDUGURI, Nigeria – A severe hunger crisis is gripping Northern Nigeria, where 17 million people are now facing acute food insecurity due to a 15-year insurgency, the World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Thursday.
The conflict-hit northern regions have been plagued by insurgent groups that routinely raid villages, religious facilities, schools, and other learning institutions. These violent attacks result in the deaths of civilians and the looting of vital resources, leaving millions of people displaced from their homes.
According to the UN food agency, the ongoing violence has kept farmers away from their fields and severely restricted humanitarian access, pushing 17 million individuals across nine northern states into severe hunger.
WFP spokespersons highlighted that the situation is being heavily compounded by an extreme funding shortfall. Due to these financial constraints, the agency is currently only able to provide food assistance to approximately 10% of the people who desperately need it in the northeast.
Borno State, a notorious hotspot for the Islamic insurgency, has been hit particularly hard. The crisis has pushed 3 million of its residents into acute food insecurity, with an additional 750,000 facing severe hunger.
Across all of Northern Nigeria, officials have observed a significant increase and geographic spread in insurgent attacks and violence. This escalating conflict is forcing families to flee and making it increasingly difficult for WFP teams to reach those in urgent need of food assistance.
The latest food security analysis indicates that the number of individuals facing crisis, emergency, or catastrophic levels of hunger has surged by nearly 2 million compared to previous projections. Consequently, this devastating crisis has left women and children disproportionately vulnerable to severe malnutrition.