Following the widespread hunger and malnutrition crisis, the United Nations has revealed that $396 million is urgently needed to scale up humanitarian action in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe (BAY) states to address the situation.
UN in a statement issued by the Head of Public Information United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Ann Weru, noted that more than half a million people may face emergency levels of food insecurity, with extremely high rates of acute malnutrition and cases of mortality if there is no rapid and significant scale-up of humanitarian assistance.
UN also said that an estimated two million children under five in the three states are likely to face waste this year.
The statement said this is the most immediate and life-threatening form of malnutrition.
“Some 700,000 children are at risk of severe acute malnutrition – meaning that they are 11 times more likely to die compared to well-nourished children. They need immediate action to survive.
“The deepening food crisis and worrying malnutrition levels are the result of years of protracted conflict and insecurity which continue to prevent more than 2 million people from returning home.
A combination of fuel and food inflation, a naira cash crisis earlier in the year, and climate shocks (such as the record floods in Nigeria in 2022) are among the factors that have worsened the crisis.
“I have seen firsthand the anguish of mothers fighting for the lives of their malnourished infants in our partner-run stabilization centres. This is a situation no one should have to face,” said Mr Matthias Schmale, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria.
“I have spoken with children who described going for days without eating enough. Mothers who said their children go to bed crying from hunger. Families struggling to feed their families as they have gone for months without receiving food assistance.”
“This may become the unfortunate reality for millions of food-insecure people in the states unless resources and funding are urgently mobilised.
“If additional funding is not received, humanitarian partners will only reach about 300,000 of the 4.3 million at-risk people in need of food assistance during the peak of the lean season. As more people in urgent need of food aid go unassisted, there will be an increased risk of starvation and death.
“With the current limited resources, nearly 3.4 million people will not be reached with agricultural livelihood support, including farming inputs such as fertilizers.
This funding gap is critical for agricultural livelihoods sustaining over 80 per cent of the vulnerable people across the BAY states. A critical part of addressing the food crisis is to enable people to grow their own food”, he added.
The Country Representative of The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Nigeria, Ms Cristian Munduate, however, called for concerted efforts to protect children.
“We have the power to make a difference in the lives of these children. With your support, we can prevent more children from suffering from malnutrition and give them a chance at a healthy and happy future,” she said.
On the other hand, the FAO representative to Nigeria, Mr Fred Kafeero, further warned that the upcoming lean season may worsen food insecurity among vulnerable households without access to agricultural livelihood options.
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