Médecins Sans Frontières has said that the United Nations failed to act quickly enough in northern Nigeria, where a food crisis is killing hundreds of people per day. The region was devastated by the Boko Haram insurgency, which has led to a halt in food production. Now even in the capital of Borno state, where rice costs $100 per bag, people are dying of hunger. Toby Lanzer, UN assistant secretary-general and regional humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel told the Guardianthat hundreds of thousands of lives are at risk in the region. “This is about as bad as it gets. There’s only one step worse and I’ve not come across that situation in 20 years of doing this work and that’s a famine,” said Lanzer. Grema Terab, who led the Nigerian state’s humanitarian response agency until 2015 has accused the government of outright neglect, including attempting to cover up the crisis rather than address it. The World Food Program was invited to Nigeria and is scaling up their operation in Borno, where it hopes to provide food aid to 700,000 people by December.
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