Millions of people in North-East Nigeria are currently suffering as a result of a deteriorating food security and nutrition crises. Food insecurity refers to not knowing when or where your next meal will come from. It essentially means that you are unable to meet your own or your family’s basic necessities. As a result, countless families are forced to make drastic compromises in order to survive. Many people, especially children, are in risk of not making it through the lean season.

According to the most recent food security assessments, 4.1 million people in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states – three of Nigeria’s northeastern states – are at danger of acute food insecurity during this lean season. More than a decade of conflict has weakened people’s resilience and coping strategies.

Food insecurity increases the risk of malnutrition. In 2022, 1.74 million children under the age of five are anticipated to suffer from acute malnutrition in the Northeast. Mothers who have lost children to hunger can attest to the dangers it poses, as well as the grief and despair it causes. While visiting a nutrition stabilisation clinic in the North-East, I witnessed the haunting sight of a child on the verge of death, and the recollection continues to worry me. Many variables influence food security, including conflict-related insecurity, rising food prices, and climate change.

This is taking place in a region where people are already extremely vulnerable. North-East Nigeria has seen 12 years of strife and instability as a result of the violence of non-state armed groups such as Boko Haram. This year, 8.4 million people require humanitarian aid, with approximately 80 percent being women and children. The violence has forced more than 2.2 million people to flee their homes. Livelihoods, health care, education, and other key areas have all been damaged, depriving millions of people of critical assistance and the ability to fend for themselves and their family.

People displaced by conflict have few options. Many moved to garrison towns for safety, but stepping beyond the towns’ protective ditches to practise agriculture or collect firewood puts their lives at risk. Many vulnerable people have little choice but to use negative coping techniques to get food, such as survival sex, child marriages, begging, child labor, or recruitment into armed groups.

Hauwa, a mother from Rann, Borno State, lacks access to food and must beg on the street to sustain herself and her two children. But it’s not nearly enough, and hunger has transformed her body into something she doesn’t recognise. She states, “This is not my body.” Her story is only one of the many stories of misery we hear every day.

The humanitarian community is deeply concerned about the millions of individuals who may face hunger during this lean season, as well as the sacrifices they will make to survive. Every effort should be taken to ensure that life-saving programmes continue to provide food security assistance and address severe malnutrition. Humanitarian and government actors are prepared to scale up operations, but finance is urgently required.

A $351 million multi-sector response has been planned as part of Nigeria’s $1.1 billion 2022 Humanitarian Response Plan to save lives and protect the most vulnerable. Funds are urgently required, and any contribution can make an impact. Donate to https://crisisrelief.un.org/nigeria-crisis to help individuals in North-East Nigeria receive life-saving assistance. We need your help now; tomorrow may be too late for Hauwa and many others.

Schmale is the United Nations’ Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria.