The United Nations World Food Programme (UN-WFP) said more than 150 World Food Programme-supported nutrition clinics in Borno and Yobe states will close, due to critical funding shortfalls.

According to the humanitarian organisation, children will be among the worst affected if vital aid ends, and more than 150 WFP-supported nutrition clinics in Borno and Yobe states will close.

The development will mean ending potentially life-saving treatment for more than 300,000 children under two and placing them at increased risk of wasting.

WFP had earlier announced it would be forced to suspend all emergency food and nutrition aid for 1.3 million people in northeast Nigeria at the end of July.

The organisation, in a news release on its website, stated that this was due to critical funding shortfalls which come at a time of escalating violence and record levels of hunger.

“WFP’s food and nutrition stocks have been completely exhausted. The organisation’s last supplies left warehouses in early July, and life-saving assistance will end after the current round of distributions is completed.

“Without immediate funding, millions of vulnerable people will face impossible choices: endure increasingly severe hunger, migrate, or possibly risk exploitation by extremist groups in the region,” it noted.

The WFP Country Director for Nigeria, David Stevenson, said, “Nearly 31 million people in Nigeria are now facing acute hunger, a record number.

“At the same time, WFP’s operations in northeast Nigeria will collapse without immediate, sustained funding.

“This is no longer just a humanitarian crisis; it’s a growing threat to regional stability, as families pushed beyond their limits are left with nowhere to turn.”

It stated that in conflict-affected northern areas, escalating violence from extremist groups is driving mass displacement.

“Some 2.3 million people across the Lake Chad Basin have been forced to flee their homes, straining already limited resources and pushing communities to the brink,” it added.

Stevenson further said, “When emergency assistance ends, many will migrate in search of food and shelter. Others will adopt negative coping mechanisms – including potentially joining insurgent groups – to survive.

“Food assistance can often prevent these outcomes. It allows us to feed families, help rebuild economies and support long-term recovery.”

WFP added that in the first half of 2025, it had been able to hold hunger at bay across northern Nigeria, reaching 1.3 million people with life-saving food and nutrition assistance.

“Support for an additional 720,000 people was planned for the second half of the year before funding shortfalls put life-saving programmes in jeopardy.

“WFP has the capacity and expertise to deliver and scale up its humanitarian response, but the critical funding gap is paralysing operations.

“WFP urgently requires $130m to prevent an imminent pipeline break and sustain food and nutrition operations through the end of 2025,” it concluded. (The PUNCH)