Thousands of Nigerian children doomed by Boko Haram to starve to death

Unicef says world's worst humanitarian crisis looms but funds for aid aren't forthcoming.

a malnourished child is weighed at a clinic run by Medecins Sans Frontieres in Maiduguri Nigeria on Monday, August 29, 2016, victim of famine conditions created by Boko Haram. Sunday Alamba / AP

LAGOS // As many as 75,000 children will die over the next year in famine-like conditions created by Boko Haram — far more than the 20,000 people killed in the seven-year Islamic uprising.

The United Nations Children’s Fund says the severity of malnutrition levels and high number of children facing death make the humanitarian crisis confronting northeastern Nigeria perhaps the worst in the world. But donors are notresponding to appeals for help.

Most severely malnourished children die of secondary illnesses like diarrhoea and respiratory infections. “But with famine, you actually die of hunger, ”said Arjan de Wagt, nutrition chief for Unicef in Nigeria.

Severe malnutrition is being found in 20, 30 and even 50 per cent of children in pockets of the region.

“Globally, you just don’t see this. You have to go back to places like Somalia five years ago to see these kinds of levels,” said Mr de Wagt said. Nearly 260,000 people died in Somalia between 2010 and 2012 from severe drought aggravated by war. At the time, the United Nations said aid needed to be provided more quickly.

Unicef on Thursday doubled the amount of its appeal for Nigeria, saying $115 million is needed to save children whose “lives are literally hanging by a thread.” But only $24 million has been raised so far. The lack of funds has meant about 750,000 people living in accessible areas received no help this year, said Unicef spokeswoman Doune Porter.

Most of the estimated 2.6 million people who fled Boko Haram’s insurgency are subsistence farmers who have been unable to plant for two years or more.

Several thousand people returned this month from refugee camps to towns being secured by Nigeria’s military, but with the rainy season now drawing to a close, it is too late to plant new crops. Meanwhile, Boko Haram still attacks outside urban areas.

Four million people are in desperate need of food and of those, about 2.2 million people trapped in areas where Boko Haram is operating or in newly liberated areas that are still too dangerous to reach by road, said Mr de Wagt said. Among them, 65,000 are living in famine-like conditions.

According to the aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the crisis has reached “catastrophic levels” for people who have sought refuge in towns controlled by the military but who are “entirely reliant on outside aid that does not reach them.” the highest levels of starving children are in camps in Maiduguri, the northeastern city free of conflict where aid workers have been active for two years. “The mortality rate is five times higher than what is considered an emergency, with the main cause being hunger,” said an MSF statement.

There have been recent allegations by displaced people and aid workers that food aid is being stolen in Maiduguri. Responsibility for ensuring aid is delivered falls to the Nigerian authorities but MSF described the overall aid response as “massively insufficient, uncoordinated and ill-adapted.” But Muhammad Kanar, the area coordinator for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency, denied there were any cases of malnutrition in Maiduguri. Some officials from his agency, which manages the camps, are among several accused of stealing food aid.

Christina Corbett of the aid group Oxfam said, “Many families are only able to eat once every few days and usually only watered-down porridge. They are going to bed hungry and waking up with no way to change that.”

Unicef restricted its work in the region after Boko Haram fighters attacked a humanitarian convoy in July, wounding a Unicef worker and others when a rocket hit an armoured car. The attack happened despite the convoy having a military escort.

But Mr de Wagt said the agency continues to deliver some therapeutic food by helicopter and to train local health workers to treat malnourished children living in dangerous areas.

* Associated Press