UN says 9.2 million Lake Chad residents need food aid

More than nine million people in the Lake Chad region are in desperate need of food aid as the violent insurgency being waged there by Boko Haram rages, the UN said Monday. Half of the region's residents are facing "chronic food insecurity" and malnutrition as the violence around Lake Chad "continues to deteriorate", the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement. "(Fighting) has catastrophically worsened their vulnerability," said the statement, which blamed Boko Haram's violent campaign to carve out a hardline Islamic state in northeast Nigeria and beyond for triggering "the largest crisis of displaced people in Africa".

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