GENEVA: 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 said Friday.
A 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," said Bettina Luescher, spokeswoman for the UN's World Food Programme.
But tough economic conditions in Nigeria -- caused by low oil prices and surging inflation -- could see that number rise to 5.5 million "next month", Luescher told reporters in Geneva.
"We are so concerned about where this crisis is going," she said.
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