Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has warned that a food crisis among internally displaced persons could lead to thousands of children having to be treated for severe acute malnutrition, which is defined by a very low weight for height and visible severe wasting.
“In Nigeria, growing insecurity, notably because of criminal groups, has contributed to the deterioration of living conditions,” the MSF said.
A report by ReliefWeb – the humanitarian information service provided by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) – said in March that in 2021 more than 1 million children in northeast Nigeria were expected to be acutely malnourished, including more than 600,000 facing severe malnutrition, who could die if nothing was done.
It said conflict and insecurity had worsened the situation, leading to decreased food accessibility, possible outbreaks of acute watery diarrhoea, measles and malaria. The nutrition situation could also be negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on socioeconomic factors.
A statement by Issiaka Abdou, MSF West Africa operations chief said: “A major nutritional and food crisis seems to be developing, so the priority today is to prepare as best we can.”
This year, the agency said, there had been a sharp increase in the number of severely malnourished children at its facilities in the region — up by 34% in the same period last year.
The number of those admitted in a critical condition over the same period had surged by 46%.
It said internally displaced persons were more at risk because they were extremely vulnerable, having had to flee from their homes with nothing but the clothes they were wearing because of violent conflict and then having to find shelter – usually in camps or in host communities.
Jobs and money were scarce for these individuals and many had to live on scraps of food if they did not get help from international aid agencies.
Some humanitarian agencies no longer worked in the northeast because it was too dangerous and they feared attacks by insurgents, mostly by members of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and the Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihād (JAS), more commonly referred to as Boko Haram.
Kaltum Tijjani, an internally displaced person who lives in Bakassi camp – one of the oldest camps in Maidduguri, said she tried to feed her child nutritious food to avoid malnutrition.
“I always make sure that I feed my child with food that will help to boost his immunity. I try to ensure that he has a balanced diet so that he does not become malnourished,” she said.
Malama Mattaram, also from Bakassi, said she had been advised by aid agencies about the danger of malnutrition. She said she did her best to provide the diet her child needed.
Muhammed Muktar, a nutritionist from Première Urgence Internationale, urged women to take good care of their children’s health by watching their diet. He said feeding them breast milk after delivery was very important because it helped babies to stay healthy.
But the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said breastfeeding rates had not improved significantly in the past decade, with only 17% of babies being exclusively breastfed during their first six months of life. Just 18% of children aged six to 23 months were fed the minimum acceptable diet.
UNICEF said Nigeria had the second-highest burden of stunted children in the world, with a national prevalence rate of 32% of children under five. An estimated 2 million children in the country suffered from severe acute malnutrition, but only two out of every 10 children affected were reached for treatment. Seven percent of women of childbearing age also suffered from acute malnutrition.
MSF said that more than 224 million children around the world last year suffered from malnutrition. It is the underlying contributing factor in nearly half of the deaths of children under five years of age.
