The United Nations on Wednesday called for more resources to sustain and scale up humanitarian interventions in northern Nigeria.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, who made the call at a news conference in New York, said the humanitarian response plan for the north-east was currently less than 50 per cent funded.

“Our humanitarian colleagues in Nigeria are calling on the government and the donor community to urgently unlock resources to support children amid a deteriorating nutrition crisis,” stated Mr Dujarric. “Nearly six million children under the age of five in the north of the country are estimated to suffer from acute malnutrition from May until April 2023. More than 512,000 pregnant and lactating women are also estimated to suffer from acute malnutrition.”

According to Mr Dujarric, more than 650,000 hectares of farmland were damaged in the recent flooding that impacted Nigeria.

“We and our partners are concerned that this will aggravate the situation,” the UN spokesman noted, saying that the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) would scale up the production and distribution of supplementary food powder to 10,000 households with funding from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF).

Mr Dujarric explained that the FAO also planned to distribute food vouchers to 5,000 families. It will also distribute poultry, goats and feed to over 8,000 households and support 14,000 other households with dry-season food production kits.

(NAN)