WFP Warns Hunger In Northern Nigeria Has Reached Worst Levels In Years

More than 17 million people across nine conflict-affected states in northern Nigeria are now facing crisis, emergency or catastrophic levels of hunger, according to the World Food Programme.

The UN agency said the figure has risen by almost two million people since the last projections, with insecurity, displacement and reduced humanitarian funding pushing the food crisis to levels not seen in nearly a decade.

Borno remains the worst-hit state. WFP said more than three million people there are acutely food insecure, including more than 750,000 people in severe hunger conditions and over 10,000 people facing catastrophic hunger.

Daily Post reported that the warning has renewed concern over food shortages in the North, where attacks on communities have kept many farmers away from farmland and made humanitarian access harder.

WFP Regional Director for West and Central Africa Kinday Samba said the agency is worried about how far the crisis is spreading. She said violence that was once concentrated in parts of the North-East is now affecting a wider area, forcing people off farmland and cutting communities off from assistance.

The agency also warned that funding shortfalls have sharply reduced its reach. In three North-East states, WFP said 6.2 million people are food insecure, but it can currently support only 740,000 of them.

That leaves about 5.5 million people, many of them children, without the food and nutrition assistance they need. WFP said this is a steep fall from the 1.3 million people it supported during the 2025 lean season.

The agency said some communities are already reporting desperate coping measures, including people joining armed groups in search of food or income. It also warned that the suspension of food assistance in some camps has increased risks for women and children.

WFP said it needs $89 million over the next six months to continue food and nutrition assistance, as well as logistics support, across northern Nigeria.

Sources: Daily Post; World Food Programme