The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations has said that over 12 million Nigerians are facing hunger due to insecurity and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Communication officer of the Organization, David Tsokar, in a statement yesterday, November 12 in Abuja, said that the United Nations food security and nutrition analysis conducted in 20 states in October shows that insecurity and COVID-19 have forced 12 million Nigerians into hunger.
He said that about 19 per cent of the affected households are in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States because of the ongoing insecurity in the north-east and the lingering economic impact of COVID-19.
“The analysis, known as the Cadre Harmonise conducted in 20 states and the FCT revealed that approximately 12.1 million people are expected to face food scarcity through December,.’
Tsokar said that the provisional result of the report showed that the number of people in critical or worse phases of food insecurity might increase to about 16.9 million.
Tsokar said this would be the case unless efforts are made to scale up and sustain humanitarian aid.
The states analysed in the current Cadre Harmonise include Abia, Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Borno, Cross-River, Edo, and Enugu.
Others are Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Lagos, Niger, Plateau, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and FCT.
He said that the analysis estimates showed that Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states are the most affected by the prolonged armed conflicts.
In these states, 2.4 million people are currently facing hunger and needed urgent assistance.
Tsokar said that an estimated two million people in the emergence phase even with humanitarian aid are facing extreme food deficits, resulting in a very high acute malnutrition or excessive mortality.
He said this number is projected to increase to 3.5 million at the peak of 2022 lean season between June and August.
Tsokar said at this time, the number of people anticipated to be in the emergency phase
would double to 4.6 million.
He said that another 13.6 million people are anticipated to experience catastrophe-like conditions in some of the most inaccessible localities.
Source: NAN.
