Nigeria's northeast risks mass hunger as UN funding dwindles

malnutrition in maiduguri

Mothers with their children in one of the clinics for malnourished children in Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria's Borno State. PHOTO | COURTESY | MSF

The United Nations humanitarian agency is struggling to secure funding to combat severe food insecurity in Nigeria's insurgency-hit northeast, raising fears of mass hunger and deaths, its resident coordinator warned.

In April, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) launched a $306 million appeal alongside Nigeria on behalf of 2.8 million people in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states, regions ravaged by a 15-year Islamist insurgency, during the lean season, a period of peak food scarcity.