Northern Nigeria hunger reaches worst levels in nearly a decade, WFP says

LAGOS, July 2 - More than 17 million people across nine conflict-hit states in northern Nigeria face severe hunger, the U.N. food agency said on Thursday, warning that violence and funding cuts are driving food insecurity to its worst level in nearly a decade.

The latest food security analysis showed the number of people facing crisis, emergency or catastrophic hunger had risen by almost two million from previous projections, the World Food Programme (WFP) said in a statement.

The findings underline the deepening humanitarian cost of insecurity in Africa’s most populous country, where Islamist insurgents in the northeast and armed gangs in parts of the north have displaced communities, kept farmers from their fields and restricted aid access.

The crisis is worsening during the lean season, when households typically exhaust food stocks before the next harvest.

Borno state, the epicentre of a long-running Islamist insurgency, has more than 3 million people who are acutely food insecure, including more than 750,000 facing severe hunger conditions, WFP said.

"When people lose access to food, the risks of displacement, exploitation and instability increase," said WFP regional director for West and Central Africa Kinday Samba, adding that violence was spreading across a wider area and forcing people from farmland.

WFP said it can only support fewer than half of the 1.3 million people it was able to assist last year in three northeast states, where 6.2 million are food insecure.

The agency said it needs $89 million over the next six months to maintain food, nutrition and logistics support across northern Nigeria. REUTERS