US Approves $32.5m Aid To Tackle Hunger In Borno, Northern Nigeria

The United States Government has approved $32.5 million in humanitarian assistance to Nigeria, with a focus on tackling hunger in conflict-ravaged northern states, particularly Borno.

In a statement yesterday, the U.S. Mission in Nigeria said the funds would provide food and nutritional support for internally displaced persons in the northeast, where insurgency has battered communities for over a decade.

The aid package is projected to reach more than 764,000 people, including 41,569 pregnant and breastfeeding women, and 43,235 children.

Borno remains the epicentre of the crisis. Aid agencies have repeatedly warned that an “unprecedented hunger emergency” could leave 1.3 million people without food and force the closure of at least 150 nutrition clinics. In Maiduguri, only one in-patient malnutrition centre—run by Italian humanitarian group Intersos—remains operational.

In July, World Food Programme (WFP) Regional Director for West Africa, Margot van der Velden, raised the alarm that funding shortages had forced the agency to suspend food assistance in parts of West and Central Africa, placing millions at risk. Food reserves in Nigeria and other affected countries were projected to dry up by September.

Northern Nigeria is also grappling with worsening insecurity. Over 35,000 civilians have been killed and more than two million displaced in the past decade, while incessant clashes between farmers and herders in the northwest and north-central have deepened food shortages.