The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has announced the release of $10 million under the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERT) for urgent aid to the North-East plagued by food and nutrition crises.

This is contained in a statement by OCHA in Maiduguri on Monday.

The UN said no fewer than 1.74 million children under five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition in the North-East this year.

“This CERF allocation is the latest in a concerted effort to address the food and nutrition crisis. In May 2022, CERF allocated $15 million to support the catastrophic food insecurity and nutrition response,” the UN statement said. “In September, the Nigeria Humanitarian Fund (NHF) provided two allocations of $2.5 million and N1 million to enable humanitarian actors to provide urgent nutrition support in line with the interagency $351 million multisector plan to address the desperate food and nutrition situation.”

It noted that the consequences of inaction were a matter of life and death as more than 5,000 were expected to die while those who survived could face lifelong disabilities.

“We urgently need to close the funding gap to rapidly scale up the response and implement immediate life-saving measures,” said Matthias Schmale, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator for Nigeria. “For the thousands of children trying to survive, additional funding is needed today, not tomorrow.”

(NAN)