Borno Facing World’s Worst Food Crisis –UNICEF

The food crisis unfolding in Nigeria’s
northeastern Borno state is probably
the worst in the world at the moment,
with 4.5 million people in need of
assistance, out of which one million
are in

danger of extreme malnutrition,
according to Unicef.
“We haven’t found the right words
yet to describe the magnitude of
the problem,” said Arjan de Wagt,
Unicef’s chief of nutrition in
Nigeria, in an interview in the
capital, Abuja on Friday.
“I’ve checked with my colleagues in
New York and they’re not aware of
anywhere around the world where
people are in this kind of
situation.”
Aid workers first began to gain
access to parts of the country’s
northeast region in April, as
government forces pushed back
Boko Haram Islamist militants from
many of the places they had
occupied.
Every subsequent piece of
information coming from the area
since then has only added to the
grimness of the situation,
The militant group has been on a
violent campaign since 2009 to
impose their version of Islamic law
in Africa’s most populous country
of about 180 million people.
Tens of thousands of people have
died in the violence and millions
have been forced to flee their
homes.
An estimated 2.5 million people
remain cut off in parts of the north
of Borno, where insurgents are
active, making it unsafe for
humanitarian workers.
“People are completely cut off from
trade routes and from aid, and
they’ve not been able to plant,”
said De Wagt.
“Severely malnourished children
have the risk of one in five dying.
For these kids in Borno, the risk is
much higher because they don’t
have proper food and there’s no
health care. That’s why we have a
polio outbreak.”
The number of those approaching
the most serious rank of a five-level
malnutrition scale has increased
steadily since early in the year,
with at least one million “in
severity level four” and another
75,000 people facing outright
famine; the worst case, the Unicef
official said.
With the emergency comparable to
Ethiopia and Somalia about five
years ago, according to Unicef there
is an urgent need to intervene with
assistance, particularly food with
the right nutrients for vulnerable
people such as children, pregnant
women and B.reastfeeding
mothers.
“The world and Nigeria doesn’t
realise how bad this is,” De Wagt
said.
“In the area of food nutrition, if
you look at the level and the
indicators, I’m not aware of
anywhere you have this magnitude
and this number.”

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