Millions go hungry in Nigeria as aid dries up, jihadists surge

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - DAMBOA, July 24 — Resurgent jihadist attacks, huge cuts in foreign aid and a spiralling cost of living: hunger is looming in northeastern Nigeria, where more than a million people face starvation.

Before insurgency upended daily life, Damboa was a regional farming hub. Today it stands on the frontline of survival.

Located around 90km south of Borno state capital Maiduguri, the town lies on the fringes of the Sambisa forest, a game reserve turned jihadist enclave.

While Nigeria’s 16-year-old insurgency has slowed since violence peaked around 2015, attacks have picked up since the beginning of the year due to a myriad of factors that saw jihadist groups strengthen and security forces stretched thin. 

Almata Modu, 25, joined thousands of others fleeing the countryside into town in May, after jihadists overran her village. Rations are already meagre — and set to run out as Western aid dries up.

“We are safe, but the food is not enough,” Modu told AFP, wearing a purple hijab, approaching an aid distribution centre in a police station.

Aminata Adamu, 36, agreed. She fled her home a decade ago and receives monthly rations for four registered family members — even though the family has since grown to 11.

‘Lives will be lost’ 

The limited food will soon run out by the end of July as Western aid cuts — including President Donald Trump’s dismantling of the US Agency for International Development — send humanitarian programmes into a tailspin.

“This is our last rice from USAID,” said Chi Lael, Nigeria spokeswoman for the World Food Programme, pointing at a stack of white bags at another distribution centre in Mafa, around 150km from Damboa.

There are five million “severely hungry” people in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states — the three worst affected by the jihadist insurgency waged by Boko Haram and rival Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).

WFP has until now only been able to feed 1.3 million who now face starvation as food handouts run out.

“There is no food left in the warehouses,” said Lael. “Lives will be lost.”

The timing couldn’t be worse. June to September is known as the “lean season”, the time between planting and harvest when families have little food reserves.

Normally, rural farmers would buy food — but amid mass inflation from an economic crisis, coupled with forced displacement, many “can’t afford much”, said Diana Japaridze, of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Flying into Damboa shows vast swathes of farmland, abandoned because of the violence.

The IS-aligned ISWAP has become better organised. 

Concurrently, the Niger-Nigeria counter-terrorism collaboration has been strained as the military is stretched thin by a separate banditry crisis and an economic crunch has stiffened rural grievances that such groups feed off, according to analysts. 

A farmer was killed in his field just days ago, residents said. 

Meanwhile, Damboa has the highest and most severe cases of malnutrition among children under five years in northeast Nigeria, said Kevin Akwawa, a doctor with the International Medical Corps.

150 nutrition centres shutting down 

Fanna Abdulraman, 39, mother of eight, brought her six-month-old, severely malnourished twins to a nutrition centre. 

She latched them to her breasts but, malnourished herself, she can’t produce milk.

Of the 500 nutrition centres that the WFP operates in northeast Nigeria, 150 are to be shut at the end of July due to shortage of funding. That leaves the lives of some 300,000 children at risk, according to WFP nutrition officer Dr John Ala.

Two imposing banners bearing the trademark blue-and-red USAID logo still hang on the front gate, where stocks will soon run out.

A sign of the insecurity in the area, everyone entering the centre is frisked with a handheld metal detector.

Looming food shortages threaten to make matters worse.

“When you see food insecurity, poverty, the next thing... is more insecurity, because people will resort to very terrible coping mechanisms to survive,” Ala said.

Across the country a record nearly 31 million people face acute hunger, according to David Stevenson, WFP chief in Nigeria.

With WFP operations collapsing in northeast Nigeria, “this is no longer just a humanitarian crisis, it’s a growing threat to regional stability”, said Stevenson.

Fanna Mohammed, a 30-year-old mother of nine, was oblivious food aid and child nutrition treatment will soon end.

“I can’t imagine that we will live,” she said when she found out, an eight-month-old strapped on her back, a two-year-old shyly fidgeting next to her.

In a June-to-September outlook report, the WFP and Food and Agriculture Organization warn “critical levels of acute food insecurity are expected to deteriorate” as the conflict intensifies, economic hardships persist and floods are expected.

Despite the desperate need for more food, only a few farmers dare to venture out.

They tend their fields under the protection of armed militias, stationed a few kilometres apart along the Maiduguri-Mafa highway. — AFP