Hunger threatens more than a million children in northeast

As northeast Nigeria continues to suffer a humanitarian crisis that has lasted for nearly a decade, a new analysis of the nutritional and food situation reinforces concerns about the future of more than one million malnourished children.

By August 2021, it is estimated that 1,148,906 children under the age of five will be acutely malnourished in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states, out of which 605,000 will be severely acutely malnourished. They will suffer from the most severe form of malnutrition that leads to death without adequate treatment. According to estimates from the IPC or Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, which measure levels of food and nutritional insecurity.

Action Against Hunger is working in the region since 2010 participated in the IPC Acute Malnutrition Analysis in partnership with thirty organisations under the leadership of the Federal Ministry of Health, Nigeria.

Adama, 48 months old, is one of the children suffering from severe acute malnutrition. Her mother, Jidda Saleh, lives in the internally displaced persons’ camp in Fariya, Borno state

“We engaged the services of a traditional doctor who cut her cheeks with sharp objects for the pus to come out. However, Adama’s condition worsened as her entire body started swelling after that. We were also referred to another traditional doctor who gave us leaves and bark of trees for medication, but it never improved her condition.” Fortunately, for Adama and her mother, they encountered an Action Against Hunger staff in Fariya camp who brought them to the stabilization centre. “When we came, my daughter could neither sit nor walk but here in the facility, we have been on medication and good food too. Adama’ swelling is gone and my daughter is well now,” Jidda narrated.