U.N. food agency says nearly 1 mln going hungry in Mozambique

GENEVA, April 13 (Reuters) - Almost one million people are facing severe hunger in northern Mozambique where hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee a jihadist insurgency, the U.N. food agency said on Tuesday.

"As the security situation continues to deteriorate, more than 950,000 people in the north of Mozambique are now facing severe hunger," Tomson Phiri, a spokesman for the World Food Programme, told a briefing in Geneva.

Islamic State-linked militants have escalated attacks in Mozambique's northernmost province Cabo Delgado in the past year, murdering villagers, fighting the army and seizing towns. (Reporting by Emma Thomasson; editing by Stephanie Nebehay)