Around 1.8 million people are at risk of starvation in North-East Nigeria, the World Food Programme (WFP), has said.
According to the WFP, in a statement on Friday, the people were victims of an Islamist insurgency, Boko Haram, which had been undermining efforts to ferry in aid.
Aid groups entering the region in recent months have warned that shortages of food, shelter and medical care were threatening refugees with widespread famine and disease.
WFP executive director Ertharin Cousin said in all, an estimated 4.4 million people were in need of food assistance in the North-East, noting, however, that the full scale of the crisis was still unknown, as some areas remained unreachable.
“The challenge is that there are areas in Borno State in particular that are still inaccessible, and we have no idea of the food security situation (there),” she told Reuters.
Even in parts of the North-East held and defended by the army, Boko Haram attacks were jeopardising aid programmes, Cousin said.
In January, the WFP failed to reach some 300,000 people of the 1.3 million targetted because of bombings of camps for internally displaced people and attacks on markets.
The executive director told reporters a colleague who visited areas recently recaptured from Boko Haram compared the state of women and children there to images of people liberated from Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps in World War II.
“I am imploring the international community to continue to provide us with the support that is necessary,” said Cousin.
Ending the insurgency will require a political as well as a military solution, Cousin told Reuters, adding: “Until we resolve those issues the humanitarian situation will not improve to a level that allows us to reach all of those in need.”
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