The U.N. World Food Program announced on Thursday that over a million individuals in northeastern Nigeria may lose access to emergency food and nutrition assistance within weeks if funding is not obtained, as violence and hunger escalate in the area.

The United Nations' food agency stated in a release that it will significantly reduce its support, restricting it to merely 72,000 individuals in February, a decrease from the 1.3 million who received aid during the previous year's lean season, which spans from May to October.

As reported by WFP, 35 million individuals are expected to face severe hunger in Nigeria this year, marking the highest number on the continent and the largest recorded since the agency began its data collection in the country.

WFP has been delivering food assistance in northeastern Nigeria since 2015, reaching nearly two million individuals annually in the most affected regions.

"Despite the generous donations that have enabled WFP to provide life-saving assistance to the most vulnerable in recent months, those limited resources have now been depleted," the agency's statement on Thursday indicated.

"This will result in devastating humanitarian, security, and economic repercussions for the most at-risk individuals who have been compelled to abandon their homes in pursuit of food and shelter," stated David Stevenson, the Country Director for WFP in Nigeria.