The United Nations warned on Tuesday that 75,000 Nigerian children risk dying in "a few months" as hunger grips the country's ravaged northeast in the wake of the Boko Haram insurgency. Boko Haram jihadists have laid waste to the impoverished region since taking up arms against the government in 2009, displacing millions and disrupting farming and trade. Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari has reclaimed territory from the Islamists but the insurgency has taken a brutal toll, with over 20,000 people dead, 2.6 million displaced from their homes, and famine taking root. UN humanitarian coordinator Peter Lundberg said the crisis was unfolding at "high speed." "Currently our assessment is that 14 million people are identified as in need of humanitarian assistance," by 2017, Mr Lundberg told reporters in the Nigerian capital Abuja. Out of them, 400,000 children are in critical need of assistance, while 75,000 could die "in (the) few months ahead of us," Mr Lundberg said. The UN hopes to target half of the 14 million people - a population bigger than Belgium - with the Nigerian government working to reach the rest.
Around 75,000 children in Nigeria 's northeast are at risk of dying in the next few months as hunger hits an area that is struggling in the wake of the Boko Haram insurgency , warns the United Nations , adding that the crisis is approaching at " high speed " . " Currently our assessment is that 14 million people are identified as in need of humanitarian assistance , " said the UN 's Peter Lundberg . However , the UN does not have enough money to avert the crisis and has called on international organizations , the private sector and Nigerian philanthropists for help . Boko Haram has laid waste to the impoverished area since it took up arms against the government in 2009 , disrupting trade and farming and killing millions of people .