The United Nations will seek $910 million this week to help address a humanitarian crisis in northeastern Nigeria, which has been gripped by an Islamist insurgency since 2009 and was ravaged by flooding last year, according to documents released on Wednesday.
According to UN records seen by Reuters, 7.8 million people in the three northeastern states of Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe require assistance, with the UN aiming to support 3.6 million of them.
According to the documents, it is the most expensive humanitarian disaster in West and Central Africa, costing more than Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger combined.
Nigeria is also dealing with a cost-of-living problem, with inflation rising to its highest level in nearly three decades, fuelled by increasing food costs.
The UN has previously stated that Nigeria’s northeastern region risks becoming a forgotten issue as humanitarian attention shifts to other crises such as Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan.
According to a joint government-UN assessment released in November, Nigeria is facing one of its greatest hunger crises, with over 30 million people estimated to be food insecure this year.
President Bola Tinubu’s economic policies, which included eliminating fuel subsidy and foreign exchange controls, have been accused for exacerbating Nigeria’s economic problems. He claims that the reforms will put the economy on a better road to growth.
