UN says 1.4 million children at risk of dying due to famine

Nearly 1.4 million children are at “imminent risk” of death in famines in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen, the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said on Tuesday.

People are already starving to death in all four countries, and the World Food Programme says more than 20 million lives are at risk in the next six months.

“Time is running out for more than a million children,” UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said in statement. “We can still save many lives. The severe malnutrition and looming famine are largely man-made. Our common humanity demands faster action. We must not repeat the tragedy of the 2011 famine in the Horn of Africa.”

Famine was formally declared on Monday in parts of South Sudan, which has been mired in civil war since 2013. South Sudan has also been hit by the same east African drought that has pushed Somalia back to the brink of famine. Children are also suffering from severe acute malnutrition in Yemen, where two years of war have caused economic collapse and severe restrictions on shipping. Famine has been ongoing since last year in parts of northeastern Nigeria, where the government is fighting the militant group Boko Haram.

[Reuters]

This entry was posted in Humanitarian Aid, International Cooperation by Grant Montgomery.