The World Food Programme (WFP) has issued a dire ultimatum regarding the humanitarian situation in North-East Nigeria, warning that a massive funding shortfall will force the organization to abandon one million people currently relying on emergency life-support within “weeks.”
As Nigeria grapples with its most severe hunger crisis in a decade, the global agency is sounding a desperate call for international intervention to prevent a localized collapse into famine.
The WFP, recognized as the world’s largest humanitarian organization focused on saving lives through food assistance, revealed that the surge in violence across the north is paralyzing relief efforts. The gap between the needs of the population and available resources has reached a breaking point.
According to a formal statement from the organization: “The United Nations World Food Programme is sounding the alarm as more than one million people in northeast Nigeria risk being cut off from emergency food and nutrition assistance within weeks unless urgent new funding is received. Violence is surging across the north, and WFP is being forced to slash food assistance from 1.3 million people down to only 72,000 people.”
David Stevenson, the WFP’s Nigeria Country Director, emphasized that the withdrawal of aid is not merely a logistical shift but a catalyst for further regional instability. Without food in the camps, displaced families face impossible choices for survival.
“If WFP cannot continue supporting the displaced populations in camps, they will leave the sites in a desperate attempt to survive. They will try to migrate, or they may join insurgent groups to feed themselves and their families,” Stevenson warned.
Current projections for the upcoming lean season are staggering:
– 35 million people are expected to face acute and severe food insecurity.
– 15,000 people in Borno State specifically are currently at risk of falling into “catastrophic hunger”—the final stage before a full-scale famine declaration.
The crisis is being compounded by renewed conflict that has systematically dismantled the agricultural foundations of the region. Rural communities have seen their food reserves destroyed and their families scattered by ongoing violence.
Stevenson argued that cutting aid now would undo years of progress toward peace and stability.
“The crisis is unfolding amid renewed violence in the north, which has devastated rural communities, displaced families and destroyed food reserves. Now is not the time to stop food assistance. This will lead to catastrophic humanitarian, security and economic consequences for the most vulnerable people who have been forced to flee their homes in search of food and shelter. Humanitarian solutions are still possible and are one of the last stabilising forces preventing mass displacement and regional spillover,” he stated.
To keep its operations running through the next six months and prevent a total shutdown of aid in the northeast, the WFP says it requires an immediate infusion of $129 million.
Without these funds, the agency warns it will have no choice but to cease operations, leaving millions to navigate the worst hunger levels the region has seen in ten years without a safety net.
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