Over 1 mln Nigerians risk losing emergency food assistance

More than one million people in northeast Nigeria would be cut off from emergency food and nutrition assistance within weeks unless urgent new funding is secured, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) warned on Thursday.



In a statement quoting David Stevenson, WFP's country director in Nigeria, the agency said that, for the first time in Africa's most populous country, its assistance would be limited to just 72,000 people because of funding shortfalls.



To sustain its operations in northeast Nigeria over the next six months, the agency urgently requires 129 million U.S. dollars, it added.



According to the statement, Nigeria is facing one of its worst hunger crises in recent years. Nearly 35 million people are projected to experience acute and severe food insecurity during the 2026 lean season, according to the latest Cadre Harmonise, the equivalent of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) for West and Central Africa.



It added that an estimated 15,000 people in Nigeria's Borno State are at risk of catastrophic hunger (IPC Phase 5), one step away from famine and the most severe level recorded in a decade.