UNICEF raises appeal to save 400,000 malnourished children in northeast Nigeria

NO less than 400,000 children below five years are at risk of severe acute malnutrition in three conflict-affected areas in the northeast zone of Nigeria.

UNICEF who raised alarm over severe food shortages and famine in the zone said particularly in Borno State, more than 4 million people are facing severe food shortages and 65,000 are living in famine-like conditions.

Nearly one million children are now displaced across the northeast, a million are out of school and hundreds of thousands psychologically affected from the horrors they have lived through.

As part of its response to the situation, UNICEF has scaled  up its humanitarian appeal from US$55 million to US$115  towards assisting an additional 750,000 people who can now be reached across the zone.

According to UNICEF’s Director of Emergency Programmes, Afshan Khan, “Children’s lives are literally hanging by a thread. We are reaching new areas to provide critical humanitarian assistance but we need greater international support to further scale up and reach all children in dire need.”

The destruction of whole towns and villages further complicates the response. Sixty percent of health clinics have been partially or completely destroyed and 75 percent of water and sanitation facilities require rehabilitation in Borno state where conflict-related lack of access to children has lead to confirmation of three cases of wild polio virus in August and September.

UNICEF’s funding appeal comes as a series of massive coordinated emergency polio immunisation and nutrition campaigns in northeast Nigeria and neighbouring countries is underway, targeting 1.8 million children in Borno state alone. The immunisation campaign is also identifying and treating children with severe malnutrition.

UNICEF has increased its response in the areas worst-affected by the Boko Haram conflict since April, supporting basic health care and nutrition for children and mothers, and helping provide safe water and sanitation, child protection services and learning opportunities.

To date, just US$ 28 million of the US$ 115 million appeal has been received and this presents a serious obstacle to UNICEF’s scale up plan.

Since the beginning of 2016, 2.6 million conflicted-affected people have been given access to UNICEF-supported preventative healthcare services and nearly 75,000 children have been treated for severe acute malnutrition in northeast Nigeria.