Taking the Hunger Alert Seriously

A dire hunger crisis is unfolding in northern Nigeria, with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) reporting that over 17 million people across nine conflict-affected states are facing severe hunger. The WFP warns that a combination of escalating violence and significant funding cuts has pushed food insecurity to its worst level in nearly a decade.

Borno State, the epicenter of the Boko Haram insurgency, is among the hardest-hit areas, with over three million people experiencing acute food insecurity, and more than 750,000 facing severe hunger conditions. The WFP regional director for West and Central Africa, Kinday Samba, highlighted that when populations lose access to food, the risks of displacement, exploitation, and instability increase. Violence is reportedly spreading, forcing people away from their farmlands.

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When people lose access to food, the risks of displacement, exploitation and instability increase.

Compounding the crisis, insecurity in many rural Nigerian communities makes optimal agricultural production extremely difficult. This directly impacts productivity, disrupts markets, and leads to significant food price volatility. The situation is particularly challenging in the Northeast states of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe due to nearly two decades of brutal insurgency.

Projections from Cadre Harmonisé, an initiative focused on food and nutrition analysis, indicate a high level of desperation. Trond Jensen, head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Nigeria, stated that people are resorting to negative coping mechanisms like survival sex and child labor. Farmers have been killed, abducted, or injured while trying to cultivate land outside the security perimeters of garrison towns due to limited farming areas and livelihood options. The WFP findings underscore the deepening humanitarian cost of insecurity, especially during the lean season when food stocks are typically depleted before the next harvest, leaving millions of children and mothers at risk of malnutrition.

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People have been forced to adopt negative coping mechanisms such as survival sex and child labour to stay alive.