WFP food aid to 1.3 million in Nigeria at risk as stocks run out

LAGOS: The United Nations food agency will be forced to suspend food and nutrition aid for 1.3 million people in Nigeria's insurgency-hit northeast at the end of July because stocks have run out, it said on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump's dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development has led to global cuts in humanitarian aid, hitting the budgets of agencies such as the World Food Programme (WFP).

The WFP said its food and nutrition stocks in Nigeria had been exhausted because of funding shortfalls and that the last supplies left warehouses in early July.

Life-saving assistance would be halted once the latest round of distributions was completed, it added.

Without new funding, the WFP, which last year received 45% of its money for the northeast from USAID, said vulnerable people would be forced to migrate in search of food and shelter.

"Others will adopt negative coping mechanisms – including potentially joining insurgent groups – to survive," said David Stevenson, WFP country director for Nigeria.

The northeast is home to insurgent groups Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province, which have increased attacks this year.

Stevenson said the agency had planned to help an additional 720,000 people in the second half of this year but its entire operations in the northeast faced collapse without immediate funding.

"This is no longer just a humanitarian crisis, it's a growing threat to regional stability, as families pushed beyond their limits are left with nowhere to turn," he said.

The WFP said more than 150 nutrition clinics it supported in Borno and Yobe states were being closed, ending potentially life-saving treatment for over 300,000 children under two years old.

Violence in northeastern Nigeria has killed hundreds and displaced at least 2 million people, aid groups say.

The agency said it needed $131 million to continue with operations in the northeast this year.