The spokesperson of the United Nations -UN-backed World Food Programme –WFP Tomson Phiri has told journalists that more than one million children are already malnourished.
Phiri while speaking to journalists in Geneva said, following years of insecurity linked to non-State armed groups have disrupted livelihoods and forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee in search of shelter with more than half a million women, men, and children in northeastern Nigeria.
He disclosed that the agency may have to cut rations if at least $55 million in new funding is not found else the number of the affected communities facing severe hunger would probably make it the highest since the crisis exploded in 2016.
Phiri also noted that approximately 4.4 million people are facing acute food insecurity in the conflict-affected states of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe States in Nigeria.
He also said that COVID-19 had pushed up food prices and limited food supply and that the number of internally displaced people surpassed two million in September – reaching another grim milestone.
WFP’s Regional Director for West Africa Chris Nikoi in his own words also observed during a recent visit to the crisis region of Nigeria that “cutting rations means choosing who gets to eat and who goes to bed hungry saying that WFP’s food assistance is “a lifeline for millions whose lives have been upended by conflict and have almost nothing to survive on, he said.
Nikoi said that though WFP has been providing life-saving food and nutrition assistance to the severely food insecure, displaced families in camps, and to vulnerable people living in host communities, he, however, said that to sustain humanitarian operations in northeast Nigeria until March 2022, the sum of $197 million is urgently needed.
