Nigeria and Somalia have been added to the list of regions in the world where acute food insecurity risks reaching “catastrophic” levels in the coming months, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Program (WFP) warned on Wednesday (June 17).
In their latest biannual report, the two UN agencies report that northeast Nigeria could see 15,000 people fall into the “disaster” phase between June and August 2026. The most populous country in Africa is in the grip of a long-standing jihadist insurgency in the North.
In Somalia, a threat of famine has been identified in the Burhakaba district (south), illustrating a rapid deterioration of conditions after several years of drought and very low agricultural production.
These two countries join Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen and the Palestinian Territories among areas of “maximum concern,” where the severity and scale of hunger are rated highest. A total of 13 countries are considered hunger hotspots between June and November 2026.
According to the report, around 266 million people face high levels of acute food insecurity in these areas. Conflict and violence remain the main driver of these crises in 12 of the 13 countries concerned, aggravated by economic shocks, the lack of humanitarian funding and the expected effects of the El Niño climatic phenomenon, likely to cause droughts and floods.
The situation is exacerbated by the drastic decline in funding: emergency food and agricultural aid fell by around 59% between 2022 and 2025, returning to levels seen almost a decade ago. “Without immediate action, millions more people could move closer to famine,” the WFP warned.
