The world may have finally woken up to the child hunger emergency in northeastern Nigeria, but the latest data shows, if anything, a deepening crisis.
In a special report on the “possibly deteriorating” situation in the states of Borno and Yobe, FEWS NET, a network set up by USAID to provide early warning on famine and food insecurity, said surveys and screenings indicated GAM rates “ranging from 20 to nearly 60 percent”.
“This level of acute malnutrition reflects an ‘Extreme Critical’ situation… and is associated with a significantly increased risk of child mortality,” it said. “Conditions may be even worse in areas that remain inaccessible.”
UNICEF helped to draw attention to the unfolding crisis in northeastern Nigeria in July, highlighting the fact that an estimated 244,000 children faced severe malnourishment in Borno State alone and warning that an estimated 49,000 – one in five – would die if they didn’t receive treatment.
Elizabeth Wright, Head of Communications for Action Contre La Faim (Action Against Hunger), which conducted several of the nutrition surveys, said the situation – not in northeastern Nigeria alone, but also in Yemen, South Sudan, and Central African Republic – represented the worst humanitarian crisis and suffering since World War II.
“We are seeing a horrifying prevalence of malnutrition that far exceeds emergency thresholds, and people are facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity,” she said.
A former government hospital has been converted into a camp and now holds more than 25,000 internally displaced people, mostly from neighbouring towns and villages, with some coming in from as far as Adamawa State and towns along the border with Cameroon.
In the wake of the UNICEF campaign, the crisis here enjoyed a brief spell in the international media spotlight. Bama even received a string of high-profile visitors, including Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, and U2’s frontman, Bono. A range of relief items, including food, clothing and drugs, were delivered.
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