With half a million people one step away from famine in north-eastern Nigeria, UN humanitarian agencies have sounded the alarm bell on Wednesday at a briefing in Geneva asking for urgently needed funding to provide life-saving operations. 700,000 children under the age of five years are at risk of life-threatening severe acute malnutrition, a number which has doubled compared to last year.
UN agencies are warning that the food security and nutrition crises in northeastern Nigeria have reached alarming new heights and that swift global action is needed to head off a catastrophic outcome.
“The number of people facing severe hunger in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states, the three key areas where we are working as a humanitarian community, the number of people facing severe hunger is 4.3 million, up from 4.1 million last year. More than half a million people are facing emergency levels of food insecurity, which is one step away from famine,” said the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Nigeria, Matthias Schmale.
As a result of the alarming food security and nutrition crisis in the country, an estimated 6 million people need immediate food assistance. Particularly staggering are the numbers of children affected by this crisis.
“What we are talking about in the north-east is 700,000 children and this by itself, it’s really alarming,” said Cristian Munduate, UNICEF Country Representative in Nigeria.
“It is those children that are very close of dying, who really need immediate therapeutical response in health facilities. But we also have moderate, acute malnutrition and stunted children that require complementary feeding.”
The humanitarian coordinator also pointed out that the crisis is disproportionately affecting women and girls who face increased risk of violence, including abduction, rape and sexual abuse. Out of 2.2 million internally displaced persons (IDP), over the half are female.
UN officials agree that the crisis is primarily the result of a 13-year conflict triggered by the rise of Islamist militant group Boko Haram. They say that the insecurity that persists in the region prevents many people from farming their land and earning an income to support their families, thereby increasing their dependence on international aid for survival.
“This crisis is primarily the result of years of protracted conflict”, Schmale said.
“We are in the 13th year of a non-international armed conflict and the insecurity that comes with the conflict that continues to prevent many people from farming or earning their own income.”
He added that “what we see more and more is illegal vehicle checkpoints by non-state armed actors and improvised explosive device attacks. That is what is making road movement risky and again, of course, is affecting severely the population.”
High food and fuel prices also have increased the cost of humanitarian operations. Due to security concerns, the north-eastern part of Nigeria can only be accessed by helicopter.
“Deep trenches circling these villages, and the IDPs live inside the trenches. They can't go outside the trenches”, explained David Stevenson, director for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Nigeria.
“The government policy, the military policy, the police policy agrees that it's not safe for them to go outside those trenches. So, when we fly in, the farmers’ fields are empty. We look out the window, there's no farmers there. And yet it's a farming area. So, they're dependent on food assistance for two reasons, because they're in camps, and they're hungry.”
Climate change also had a significant impact on the country’s development.
“Nigeria is one of the countries across the Sahel that's on the front line of the climate crisis,” said Schmale.
“Last year we saw the worst floods in ten years in Nigeria, not just the north-east, which expected more than 4.4 million people across the country.”
In Nigeria, 8.3 million people will be in need of humanitarian aid this year. 2.2 million people are internally displaced within their own country. Overall, the 2023 humanitarian response plan for northeastern Nigeria, for which $1.3 billion has been requested, is only 25 percent funded ($336.7 million) at mid-year. More resources are urgently needed.
The UN reports the peak of the lean season from June to August, when food stocks are at their lowest, will be particularly difficult for millions of people in the northeastern states. The World Food Programme had hoped to assist 4.3 million people who are struggling to put food on their table.
Stevenson said money was so tight that 1.5 million people had to be cut off WFP’s list of beneficiaries, although they too are needy.
“And those were hard choices of prioritization based on those that are most affected by the conflict, those that are most affected by the floods and inflation,” he said.
“Already, we have people coming to our offices saying, you know, they are hungry, they are extremely hungry and people appealing on their behalf.”
And, he said, “We are turning them away.”