Hunger across conflict-affected northern Nigeria has reached its highest levels in nearly a decade, with more than 17 million people experiencing crisis, emergency or catastrophic food insecurity, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Thursday.

The agency said worsening insecurity, expanding armed violence and shrinking humanitarian funding are driving the crisis, as conflict spreads beyond the northeast into parts of northwestern Nigeria.

"What concerns us most is how this crisis is expanding," WFP Regional Director for West and Central Africa, Kinday Samba, said in a statement. He noted that growing insecurity is forcing people off their farmland, displacing communities and restricting humanitarian access.

Nigeria has battled a militant insurgency centered in the northeast since 2009, with violence intensifying again since 2025. Armed bandit groups have also expanded operations in the northwest, compounding the humanitarian crisis.

According to the WFP, the number of areas inaccessible to humanitarian workers has doubled, with 15 additional locations now considered only partially accessible because of insecurity.

The agency said the food security situation is deteriorating faster than previously anticipated. In Borno State, the epicenter of the insurgency, more than three million people are acutely food insecure, including around 10,000 facing catastrophic hunger.

Despite rising needs, humanitarian assistance is declining because of severe funding shortages. During the 2025 lean season, the WFP provided food and nutrition assistance to 1.3 million people. This year, it expects to reach just over half that number.

Across northeastern Nigeria, 6.2 million people are now food insecure, but the agency says it can assist only about 740,000 people, leaving roughly 5.5 million, many of them children, without food assistance.

The WFP warned that dwindling aid is forcing vulnerable households to adopt increasingly desperate coping strategies, including reports of some people joining armed groups in search of food or income.

The warning comes amid broader economic challenges in Nigeria, where rising poverty, inflation and conflict continue to strain livelihoods despite ongoing economic reforms.