TheCable

The government of Japan has donated $3.5 million to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to provide food assistance to internally displaced people in north-east Nigeria.

According to a statement by WFP, the fund would help feed the more than 160,000 people in Borno and Yobe who have been displaced by Boko Haram insurgency.

“We commend the government and people of Japan for their continued contributions to WFP’s operations in Northeast Nigeria,” said Ronald Sibanda, WFP country director and representative ad interim in Nigeria.

“This generous contribution from Japan will help WFP continue scaling up its response to reach more families in the region with food and nutrition support.”

About 4.7 million people are suffering from malnutrition in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, the three states that have been most affected by the insurgency.

“This new assistance is part of Japan’s pledge made at the Oslo Humanitarian Conference on Northeast Nigeria and Lake Chad Region held between February 23 and 24, 2017 for humanitarian assistance in the region, and newly additional funding from the Emergency Grant Aid as a swift response to United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres’s call for emergency humanitarian support,” said Sadanobu Kusaoke, ambassador of Japan to Nigeria.

“The government of Japan is committed to ensure that millions of people in dire need of food in northeast Nigeria do not go hungry. It is expected that this funding will, in the interim, assuage the suffering of people in the affected states who are in a near-famine situation.”

WFP says it has reached more than one million people in north-east Nigeria with cash-based transfers, food distributions and nutritional assistance.

The agency said its relief programme, in the past four months, has targeted children under five, pregnant and nursing women.

The WFP hopes to reach 1.8 million people monthly during the coming lean season.