​KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The findings from the FMS showed concerning food consumption deficits and limited diversity of diets in the inaccessible areas surveyed. More than one in every two households (62.9 percent) struggled to have sufficient food intake and nearly 80 percent experienced a crisis or higher levels (CH Phase 3 and above) of food deprivation and hunger, further evidenced in the pervasive use of food-based coping strategies;
• More than two in every three households relied on either crisis (17.6 percent) or emergency (48.1 percent) coping strategies to meet their food needs, which heightens economic vulnerability due to the negative impact on the future productivity of the most affected households;
• The levels of acute malnutrition among new arrivals from the inaccessible areas are Critical (Phase 4 IPC Acute Malnutrition Classification) with the overall Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) rates 22.9% and Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) at 8.10%. The high levels of acute malnutrition indicate an extremely stressed population including food insecurity, poor water, and sanitation access, and poor health conditions as the key underlying causes of acute malnutrition;
• Detailed analysis among new arrival population with adequate sample size showed Critical (Phase 4) GAM rates in Bama and Kukawa LGAs while Extremely Critical (Phase 5) in Damboa LGA. According to the FMS nearly half of the children are stunted (41.5%) and 28.8% underweight. The high stunting and underweight is a clear indication of a population that is chronically stressed with poor nutrition and repeated infection;
• Overall, both crude and under-five mortality rates were above the emergency threshold of 1 death/10,000 population/day and 2 deaths/10,000 population/day respectively with values of 3.02 deaths/10,000 persons/day for CMR and 3.82 deaths /10,000 under-fives/day. Analysis of the data for the 4 LGAs (Kukawa, Madagali, Magumeri, and Gwoza) with the highest number of people reveals that both CMR and U5MR are highest in Gwoza 5.43 deaths/10,000 persons/day and 10.10 deaths/10,000 under-fives/day.
• The elevated levels of consumption gaps, malnutrition, mortality, and pervasive usage of emergency coping strategies, is largely underscored by the limited availability of food stocks, restricted access to functional markets and water, health and sanitation services, which might heighten morbidity risk and impact households' ability to engage in labor for food or resource gathering.