{"id":27913,"date":"2016-08-21T00:12:44","date_gmt":"2016-08-21T00:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/nigerians-in-need-of-food-aid-to-double-to-5\/"},"modified":"2016-08-21T00:12:21","modified_gmt":"2016-08-21T00:12:21","slug":"nigerians-in-need-of-food-aid-to-double-to-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/nigerians-in-need-of-food-aid-to-double-to-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigerians in need of food aid &#8216;to double&#8217; to 5 million in September"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Collapse in crude prices has reverberated across the country.}<\/p>\n<p>The number of people in northeast Nigeria who need food aid could nearly double within a month, as the Boko Haram insurgency and economic pressures intensify suffering, the UN has said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA crisis fuelled by years of radical Islamist violence has left more than three million people in the northeast in a state of moderate or severe food insecurity,\u201d said Bettina Luescher, spokeswoman for the World Food Programme.<\/p>\n<p>But tough economic conditions in Nigeria \u2014 caused by low oil prices and surging inflation \u2014 could see that number rise to 5.5 million next month, Luescher told reporters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are very concerned about where this crisis is going,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Nigeria\u2019s economy remains overwhelmingly reliant on oil production and the collapse in crude prices has reverberated across the country.<\/p>\n<p>The naira fell to a record low this week, approaching 350 against the dollar. It has lost nearly 40 per cent of its value since June 20, when the government of President Muhammadu Buhari (left) abandoned efforts to keep it around 200 against the dollar.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn Borno state, the epicentre of the insurgency, prices have gone up 50 to 100 percent,\u201d Luescher said.<\/p>\n<p>The UN and other humanitarian agencies have increasingly sounded the alarm over the extent of the crisis facing civilians.<\/p>\n<p>When Boko Haram violence was at its peak through 2013 and 2014, humanitarian workers had almost no access to the hardest-hit areas, making it difficult to assess the extent of the needs. <\/p>\n<p>With the Nigerian military making gains against the extremists in recent months, access and information have improved.<\/p>\n<p>The WFP is ramping up its operations, giving cash to civilians who can buy food at markets and food aid to those with no access to marketplaces.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-14410 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/buhari.jpg\" alt=\"Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, who on August 12, 2016 told visiting United Nations Population Fund officials that his country is broke, an effect of plummeting oil prices. \" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Collapse in crude prices has reverberated across the country.} The number of people in northeast Nigeria who need food aid could nearly double within a month, as the Boko Haram insurgency and economic pressures intensify suffering, the UN has said. \u201cA crisis fuelled by years of radical Islamist violence has left more than three million [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[228],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-27913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-afp"],"bylines":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. ","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":71}],"contributors":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. 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