More than 600 malnourished children have died in northern Nigeria in six months after failing to receive proper care as foreign aid dries up, a medical charity has said.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said northern Nigeria, which already is struggling with insurgency and banditry, is “currently facing an alarming malnutrition crisis.”
In the first half of this year, its teams treated nearly 70,000 children for malnutrition in Katsina state, nearly 10,000 of whom had to be hospitalized.
Photo: Reuters
During the same period, cases of nutritional oedema — the most severe and deadly form of malnutrition among children — jumped 208 percent from the same period last year.
“Unfortunately, 652 children have already died in our facilities since the beginning of 2025 due to a lack of timely access to care,” the charity, which is known by its French initials, said in a statement released on Friday.
Huge cuts in foreign aid sparked by US President Donald Trump’s decision to slash spending overseas have combined with spiking living costs and a surge in jihadist attacks to create a dire situation in northern Nigeria.
Ahmed Aldikhari, MSF’s country representative in Nigeria, said the cuts from the US — but also the UK and the EU — were hampering treatment and care for malnourished children.
“The true scale of the crisis exceeds all predictions,” he said.
An MSF survey of 750 mothers showed that more than half of them were “acutely malnourished, including 13 percent with severe acute malnutrition.”
Katsina state nutrition officer Abdulhadi Abdulkadir acknowledged the severity of malnutrition in the state, but said the numbers released by the medical charity might be “too high compared to reality” and had not been validated by his administration.
“Yes, definitely there are deaths as a result of malnutrition,” he said, promising to provide official figures next week.
The MSF figures cover the entire north of the country which includes more than a dozen states.
Abdulkadir said the northern parts of his state, bordering Niger and straddling the semi desert Sahel region, have the most severe malnutrition because food production is limited by the harsh climate.
Food production in the fertile south of the state is being hampered by criminal gangs called bandits who raid villages, making farming dangerous, he said.
“This has aggravated the issue of malnutrition,” he added.
Criminal gangs have spread throughout the country, targeting rural areas with kidnappings for ransom.
The Katsina state government provided 500 million naira (US$327,367) toward nutrition programs last year and has doubled the amount this year, Abdulkadir said.
Across the country of about 230 million people, a record nearly 31 million face acute hunger, UN World Food Programme (WFP)in Nigeria country director David Stevenson said.
The WFP last week said that it would be forced to suspend all emergency food and nutrition aid for 1.3 million people in northeast Nigeria at the end of this month due to critical funding shortfalls.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday vowed that those behind bogus flood control projects would be arrested before Christmas, days after deadly back-to-back typhoons left swathes of the country underwater. Scores of construction firm owners, government officials and lawmakers — including Marcos’ cousin congressman — have been accused of pocketing funds for substandard or so-called “ghost” infrastructure projects. The Philippine Department of Finance has estimated the nation’s economy lost up to 118.5 billion pesos (US$2 billion) since 2023 due to corruption in flood control projects. Criminal cases against most of the people implicated are nearly complete, Marcos told reporters. “We don’t file cases for
Ecuadorans are today to vote on whether to allow the return of foreign military bases and the drafting of a new constitution that could give the country’s president more power. Voters are to decide on the presence of foreign military bases, which have been banned on Ecuadoran soil since 2008. A “yes” vote would likely bring the return of the US military to the Manta air base on the Pacific coast — once a hub for US anti-drug operations. Other questions concern ending public funding for political parties, reducing the number of lawmakers and creating an elected body that would
A feud has broken out between the top leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on whether to maintain close ties with Russia. The AfD leader Alice Weidel this week slammed planned visits to Russia by some party lawmakers, while coleader Tino Chrupalla voiced a defense of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The unusual split comes at a time when mainstream politicians have accused the anti-immigration AfD of acting as stooges for the Kremlin and even spying for Russia. The row has also erupted in a year in which the AfD is flying high, often polling above the record 20 percent it
‘ATTACK ON CIVILIZATION’: The culture ministry released drawings of six missing statues representing the Roman goddess of Venus, the tallest of which was 40cm Investigators believe that the theft of several ancient statues dating back to the Roman era from Syria’s national museum was likely the work of an individual, not an organized gang, officials said on Wednesday. The National Museum of Damascus was closed after the heist was discovered early on Monday. The museum had reopened in January as the country recovers from a 14-year civil war and the fall of the 54-year al-Assad dynasty last year. On Wednesday, a security vehicle was parked outside the main gate of the museum in central Damascus while security guards stood nearby. People were not allowed in because
RSS