Nigeria faces decade-worst hunger: UN

Thousands of people in Nigeria's strife-torn northeast are facing the risk of catastrophic food shortages for the first time in nearly a decade, as aid cuts deepen malnutrition across the region, the UN World Food Programme warned on Friday, reports Reuters.

Around 15,000 people are at risk in Borno state, the agency said, an area already struggling with years of militant unrest.

Across West and Central Africa, 55 million people are facing severe food shortages, with more than three quarters of the people affected in Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger, it added.

The UN body did not pick out specific funding but agencies have been raising the alarm since the Trump administration started reducing aid as part of its "America First" policy last year, and Britain and others cut aid budgets to boost spending on defence.

More than 13 million children in the region were projected to suffer malnutrition this year, the WFP said.