Over 1 bln USD needed for humanitarian aid in northest Nigeria, UN relief wing says

Humanitarian emergency directors are seeking more than 1 billion U.S. dollars for the 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan for Nigeria that would allow them to address the needs of almost 7 million people in crisis in the three most affected states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe, a UN spokesman said here Friday.

During the course of 2016, as the Nigerian Armed Forces pushed back Boko Haram-held areas, the scale of the human suffering became more apparent and the humanitarian community scaled up the response, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.

Peter Lundberg, the deputy UN humanitarian coordinator in Nigeria, said that while this is the largest crisis on the African continent, with the support of the international community and the private sector, we can begin to bring hope to the people of the northeast.

Some 4.6 million people are going hungry in northeastern Nigeria, of whom nearly two million need urgent humanitarian assistance. In some areas, more than 50 percent of children under the age of five suffer from moderate acute malnutrition or severe acute malnutrition.

Since August, the number of people in an emergency phase -- needing urgent food assistance -- has nearly doubled, from about 1 million to 1.8 million people in Borno and Yobe states, according to the latest food insecurity assessment.

Nigeria's northeast region has been a stronghold of the extremist group Boko Haram. Over past months, the Nigerian government has launched several military operations to eliminate the terrorist threat. Enditem