an IDPs camp in North East Nigeria

No fewer than one million people received food or cash assistance in the Boko Haram-affected North-Eastern Nigeria in December alone, the UN food aid agency – the World Food Programme (WFP), said.

Nigeria’s Country Director and Emergency Coordinator of WFP, Mr Sory Ouane, in a statement issued on Friday, described the needs of the people of North-Eastern Nigeria as “tremendous”.

“In December, the UN food aid agency has delivered food or cash to more than a million people in conflict-affected zones in northeast Nigeria, meaning that over half of those in need of urgent humanitarian assistance have now been reached.

“The needs are of course tremendous, and more has to be done.

“Even so, this is a dramatic expansion from the 160,000 people we were able to assist as recently as October,” Ouane said.

He said the milestone came as WFP ramped up its response in Borno and Yobe, where as many as four million people were food insecure.

According to him, the region has been devastated by years of violence linked to the Boko Haram insurgency adding, in some areas, more than half of all children under five suffer from acute malnutrition.

“In areas with functioning markets, more than 170,000 people were assisted with cash.

“Nearly 800,000 people, most of them internally displaced, in camps or in host communities, benefited from food distributions; and almost 180,000 children under five were given specialised nutritious food,” he said.

Ouane explained that under its new Rapid Response Mechanism, which includes extensive use of helicopters and the pooling of logistics and telecommunications resources across the humanitarian community, WFP had managed to reach areas that were previously inaccessible.

“While it has been challenging to scale up and provide timely, life-saving food assistance, we are now looking at ways to assist even more people in need, as many as 2.5 million by April 2017,” Ouane added.

The UN official said WFP is funded entirely by voluntary contributions and needs a total of 208 million U.S. dollars for its humanitarian response in northeast Nigeria over the next six months, of which 143 million U.S. dollars have yet to be met.(NAN)