The United Nations Humanitarian agency has warned of a food and nutritional crisis in what it calls “catastrophic consequences” for millions of people in Nigeria, especially those in the northeast where jihadist insurgency has been rampant for years now.
The UN Resident Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria, Matthias Schmale, who gave the warning on Wednesday, says he was “ringing the alarm bell now because the United Nations has received less than 20 percent of its $350 million appeal for Nigeria,” and if the funds needed to assist the people are not made available, the crisis could lead to dire consequences.
In a report, Schmale said people in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe States, all in the northeast, are currently struggling to survive after 12 years of conflict and of the 8.4 million people who need humanitarian assistance, the UN plans to support at least 5.5 million of the most vulnerable.
He added that as it stands, nearly 600,000 people are already starving and go for days without food, with hundeeds of thousands of malnourished children becoming of particular concern for the agency
“Approximately, overall, 1.74 million children under five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition across the northeast this year. Of these, over 300,000 are expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition and are, indeed, at high risk of death,” said Schmale.
He added that about 80 percent of UN aid will be used to assist women and children who often suffer the most in conflict zones due as they are subject to violence, to abductions, to rape, and other forms of abuse.
“It is a serious crisis in the sense that there is no freedom of movement, in the sense that much of the countryside is under the control then or the influence of the various different factions of Boko Haram.
“So, that there are indiscriminate killings of civilians,” Trond Jensen, Head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Nigeria, also said.
The UN officials have recognized that the crisis in Nigeria has been overshadowed by the disastrous war in Ukraine and is in danger of being forgotten, but they also warn that ignoring the humanitarian needs of Nigeria would have far reaching consequences in further destabilizing the region.