The UN World Food Programme (WFP) says a funding crisis has left no fewer than 5.4 million people stranded without aid in West Africa.
According to the UN food agency, funding constraints have been forced to limit emergency aid to only 6.2 million of the most vulnerable people in need across West Africa, scaling back from an initial target of assisting 11.6 million people.
The agency’s emergency food and nutrition assistance operation in the Sahel started in June, focusing on refugees, newly displaced people, malnourished children under five, pregnant women and breastfeeding women.
Food insecurity reached a 10-year high in West and Central Africa, affecting 47.2 million people during the June-August lean season.
Mali and Chad will be hit the hardest, said WFP, with 800,000 people at risk of resorting to desperate measures to cope, including engaging in survival sex, early marriage, or joining armed groups.
“We’re in a tragic situation,” Margot Vandervelden, regional director for…