UN to cut food aid for Nigeria crisis as funding falls short
JOHANNESBURG — Food aid will be cut for more than a million hungry Nigerians affected by Boko Haram’s insurgency if promised funding from the international community doesn’t arrive, according to a United Nations official.
Peter Lundberg, the deputy U.N. humanitarian co-ordinator in Nigeria, wrote in the French newspaper Le Monde that just 15 per cent of the U.N. aid appeal for one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises has been received. Over the next six months, $242 million is needed to help 1.8 million people, he said.
“Without sufficient financing, the World Food Program will have to reduce its vital support,” he wrote Friday.
A half-million children in northeast Nigeria are suffering from severe malnutrition, Lundberg said. “Without treatment, one in five will die,” he said.