UNICEF raises alarm over children malnutrition in northeast Nigeria

Executive Director of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Anthony Lake Tuesday warned that the conflict in northeast Nigeria had left children severely malnourished and at risk of death.

Lake said that in the three worst-affected Nigerian states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, farming has been disrupted and crops destroyed, food reserves depleted and often pillaged, and livestock killed or abandoned.

The impact on children is devastating, he said in a press release.

UNICEF estimates that 400,000 children will suffer from severe acute malnutrition over the next year in the three affected states in the West African country. If they do not receive the treatment they need, one in five of these children will die.

Lake noted that these figures represent only a fraction of the suffering as large areas of Borno state are completely inaccessible to any kind of humanitarian assistance. UNICEF is extremely concerned about the children trapped in these areas.

"What is already a crisis can become a catastrophe," Lake said.

Some 4.6 million people are going hungry in northeastern Nigeria, of whom nearly two million need urgent humanitarian assistance. In some areas, more than 50 percent of children under the age of five suffer from moderate acute malnutrition or severe acute malnutrition.

Since August, the number of people in an emergency phase -- needing urgent food assistance -- has nearly doubled, from about 1 million to 1.8 million people in Borno and Yobe states, according to the latest food insecurity assessment.

Nigeria's northeast region has been a stronghold of the extremist group Boko Haram. Over past months, the Nigerian government has launched several military operations to eliminate the terrorist threat. Enditem