Nigeria, where 78% of the 210 million inhabitants live on 1.50 dollars a day and where tens of thousands of children eat little and badly

ROME – A snapshot of the current situation in Nigeria – and in particular in the northwestern region of the country – can only start from a statistic, which alone illustrates the state of affairs in the most populous nation in Africa (210 million inhabitants) with a high rate of economic growth, far from evenly distributed. According to Nigerian Bureau of StatisticsIndeed, about 78% of people in North-West Nigeria live below the poverty line, about 1.50 dollars a day. The cost of health care is often unsustainable for families and in any case it is difficult to get treatment everywhere. This is one reason why many children have never been vaccinated against common childhood diseases.

The scourge of rampant malnutrition. The phenomenon of malnutrition is intensifying especially in the North-West of Nigeria and this – he warns Doctors Without Borders (MSF) – could have dire consequences without urgent action by the Abuja government and international humanitarian bodies. The Nobel Peace Prize organization therefore calls on the Nigerian government and local health authorities to act now, immediately, to prevent a catastrophic loss of human life in the coming months.

Tens of thousands of minors taken into care. Between January and May this year, MSF teams in north-west Nigeria provided hospital care for 10,200 severely malnourished children with medical complications and admitted 51,000 children to our outpatient feeding programmes. Hospital admissions were 26% higher than in the same period in 2022, numbers that were already unprecedented. The teams strengthened activities in the region, opening three new outpatient therapeutic feeding centres. We also operate 10 inpatient centers and 32 outpatient centers in Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara states.

Food supplies running low. This year, admissions are expected to continue to increase. The “lean season” – the period between harvests when food supplies run out, which runs from May to August in Nigeria – has only recently started, but bed occupancy is already at 100% in several centres. of MSF care. “The number of malnourished children we welcome into our facilities – says Htet Aung Kyi, MSF medical coordinator – is a strong indicator that the more we enter the lean season, the more cases we will receive”.

An area with the worst health indicators. Northwestern Nigeria – with a strong Muslim presence – has some of the worst health indicators in the country. The growing levels of violence in recent years have helped turn an alarming situation of malnutrition into a real crisis. Armed groups regularly raid cities, loot property and kidnap local people for ransom. Many residents have fled their homes for safer areas. Others have remained but are unable to access their farms or workplaces due to heightened insecurity. People in need of medical care face difficulties in reaching health centers and hospitals due to the risks of traveling on unsafe roads.

It is hard to find food. Children who recover from malnutrition and are discharged often have to be readmitted later, as their families struggle to find enough food to keep them healthy. This keeps children stuck in a spiral of scarce, nutrient-dense food that is hard to get out of. “We eat when we have food, but there are days when we go hungry. Often the children have to go and beg for food,” said Sadiya, whose child was being treated for malnutrition at MSF’s treatment center in Katsina.

The atavistic shepherd-farmer conflict. Bloody clashes between farmers and herders are Nigeria’s main security challenge on a daily basis. A report from theInternational Crisis Group (ICG), according to which the one for water resources had become a deadlier conflict by now – over 20,000 people killed since 2000 according to data from theInternational Committee on Nigeria (ICON) – with respect to the insurgency of the jihadist group Boko Haram in the Northeast. The centuries-old conflict over land ownership between nomadic shepherds and sedentary farmers has thus turned into a bitter struggle for resources, caused by drought and desertification in Northern Nigeria and in general in the entire Sahel area, which push shepherds to migrate south. The Sahel, we recall, also includes Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Sudan.