Hunger Crisis Could Kill 200 Children Per Day, Humanitarian Agency Warns FG

Two hundred children could die every day from hunger in northeastern Nigeria as a result of the ongoing conflict in the country, a humanitarian agency has warned.

Up to half of all children under the age of five are acutely malnourished, international charity Save the Children said on Monday, after screening the health of boys and girls in the region between June and October in 2016.

The figure could be even worse in areas that are out of reach because of insecurity, according to the report.

“Children are presenting in desperate conditions and facing severe malnutrition, often in combination with other life-threatening illnesses like pneumonia, malaria and diarrhoea,” said Ben Foot, Save the Children country director.

“For some cases this may be the second or third time they have fought malnutrition so their immune systems are already severely weakened.”

Violent attacks on civilians since 2009 by the armed group Boko Haram have affected almost 15 million people in northeastern Nigeria, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Zainabu Ibrahim, a mother of five severely malnourished children who escaped the clutches of Boko Haram three months ago, lives in a Bakassi camp in Maiduguri, which is home to almost 21,000 other displaced people.

“Boko Haram fighters stopped us from farming. We were really living on wild fruits and leaves,” Ibrahim told Al Jazeera.

“When we came here months ago, six of us were registered as a family and were given two measures each of corn, rice and beans to take us through the month. We tried to convince them that won’t be enough but no one pays any attention.”

More than 2.2 million people have fled their homes in the region, while 7 million people are estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the WHO.

Read More: aljazeera

Boko Haram : NEMA Re-unites 200 Children With Parents In Borno

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) on Friday said it had reunited more than 200 children with their parents affected by the Boko Haram insurgency.

Sa’ad Bello, the Head of Operations, Adamawa and Taraba office of the agency, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Yola.

Mr. Bello said the successful re-unification was conducted with the collaboration of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) under Restoring Family Link Programme.

He said the children, mostly of between the ages of five and 12, were from Bama and Baga in Borno.

“Meanwhile, we still have about 165 unaccompanied children in four designated camps in Adamawa,” he said.

The official said some families from Bama visited some Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps in Yola where they identified their children.

He said after intensive investigation by appropriate authorities concerned, the children were handed over to their parents.

He said that the agency with the support of ICRC, was working hard, through appropriate channels, to identify the parents of the remaining unaccompanied children.

NAN reports that family reunification during armed conflicts is a right under international law.

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