United Nations Office on Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) has said no fewer than 33 million Nigerians are food insecure with an additional 2.5 million children facing severe malnourishment.

This was made known by the Head of Office, UNOCHA Nigeria, Trond Jensen, yesterday, at a media briefing ahead of the launch of the agency’s 2025 Nigeria Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan.

Jensen said: “Last year across Nigeria, we saw more than three million people affected by flooding and we had seen flooding becoming a yearly event affecting millions of people and killing hundreds if not up to a thousand.

“If people are being made vulnerable by natural disasters, the current economic situation, with rapidly rising food prices, high levels of inflation, that then makes people even more vulnerable because it undermines very often, their coping mechanism.

“In terms of context for the whole Nigeria, we are seeing around about 33 million people that are food insecure, which is one of the highest levels lately. We are seeing potentially up to 2.5 million children, who would be severely and acutely malnourished, which means that they are extremely vulnerable than what we see since last June to September.”

He noted with concern that the UNOCHA was getting less international humanitarian support for intervention in the North East, especially and other parts of the country and had therefore made stringent changes to adjust to the current global reality.

He adds: “The scale and scope of humanitarian needs are so much that we are depending on the international community working very closely with local organisations and also the Federal Government to be able to address these needs. It is a multi-layered and multifaceted approach that we are seeking.

“Given the limited resources, we need to make sure we prioritise and target very carefully the most vulnerable so that we can reach them.”