More than 17 million people across nine conflict-hit states in northern Nigeria face severe hunger, the UN's food agency (WFP) has said, warning that violence and funding ‌cuts are driving food insecurity to its worst level in nearly a decade. Stripped of their livelihoods, some people are fleeing across the border into neighbouring Benin.

The latest food security analysis showed the number of people facing crisis, ​emergency or catastrophic hunger had risen by almost two ​million from previous projections, the World Food Programme (WFP) said ⁠in a statement published Thursday.

The findings underline the deepening humanitarian cost ​of insecurity in Africa’s most populous country, where Islamist insurgents in ​the northeast and armed gangs in parts of the north have displaced communities, kept farmers from their fields and restricted aid access.

The crisis is ​worsening during the lean season, when households typically exhaust food ​stocks before the next harvest.

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