A food security assessment undertaken in December 2011 showed that more than 5.4 million people (35% of the population) are food insecure, of whom 1.3 million (8.5%) are severely food insecure. Projections estimates the total number of people in food insecurity to be 6,4 million in April 2012.
All current information indicates that food deficits will persist until the next harvest season. The context and aggravating factors of this impending food crisis include: acute malnutrition prevalence remaining above emergency thresholds, rising food prices across markets, scarce local labour opportunities, large scale movements of people seeking employment, arrival of refugees fleeing fighting in Mali, a disruption of the flow of remittances from neighbouring countries also affected by crisis in 2011 and generating the return of more than 240,000 unemployed migrants to Niger.
