UN seeks $160 mn for food crisis in northeast Nigeria

Lagos: The UN on Monday said it needed roughly $160 million for Nigeria s conflict battered northeast, where the situation is at its worst in five yea...

Lagos: The UN on Monday said it needed roughly $160 million for Nigeria's conflict-battered northeast, where the situation is at its worst in five years, according to the local head of the body's humanitarian arm.

The region has been plagued by a 15-year jihadist insurgency that has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced over two million. The fighting has also ruined livelihoods and hindered access to agricultural land and markets.

The funds are needed to provide nutritional and health supplies to two million people, including 600,000 children in the Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states, officials said.

The request comes as cuts by the United States have hampered the humanitarian response in the region.

Speaking to reporters, officials from the World Food Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization and children's fund UNICEF warned that the already precarious humanitarian situation could be worsened by a disease outbreak or natural disaster such as flooding, which the region would not be prepared for.