Nigeria: International aid agencies ignore a growing malnutrition crisis in the northwest

MSF is preparing to treat up to 100,000 malnourished children this year in Katsina state and is expanding its response to malnutrition in Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, and Kano, Lacharité said.

In the area of Gummi, Zamfara state, MSF teams screened more than 36,000 children under five years old for malnutrition in June. The results were alarming: nearly one in four children were severely malnourished and in need of urgent medical care. MSF, in cooperation with the authorities, is immediately launching an emergency response in the area.

In Katsina, MSF added nearly 140 beds to inpatient therapeutic feeding centers in recent weeks, but the influx of malnourished children was so great that restricted admission criteria had to be introduced in some centers. In Kebbi, where MSF runs an inpatient center and two outpatient facilities, about 1,500 malnourished children have been treated since March.

Northwest Nigeria is chronically food-insecure, and escalating violence has pushed many communities to their limits, forcing about 500,000 people to flee their homes. In recent years, armed groups that are locally referred to as "bandits" have intensified attacks, killings, kidnappings, looting, and sexual violence. Many people cannot farm, cattle are stolen, and markets and trade are disrupted amid soaring staple food prices—which remain above the five-year average in most Nigerian markets—in an already fragile health context. 

The lack of humanitarian assistance in northwest Nigeria is partly due to the UN's failure to include the region in its humanitarian response plan for the country for the current year, which primarily focuses on the critical situation in northeast Nigeria. As a result, many organizations are struggling to follow up on assessments and secure funding to implement lifesaving support in northwest Nigeria, despite the known acute needs.

“The plight of malnourished children in northwest Nigeria cannot continue to be neglected,” said Froukje Pelsma, MSF head of mission in Nigeria. “International donors and agencies, including UNICEF and the World Food Program, must increase their support to health facilities to provide communities with access to nutritional treatment, in collaboration with the Nigerian authorities who must contribute as well.”

While responding to malnutrition in Zamfara since 2015, MSF has provided additional capacity in Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, and Kano states in 2021 and 2022. Today, MSF is running 25 outpatient and 8 inpatient malnutrition services across the five states, and MSF teams treated close to 31,000 children with severe acute malnutrition in 2021. MSF also recently raised the alarm on the situation in Maiduguri, Borno state, where MSF's inpatient malnutrition center is overwhelmed with high numbers of patients—2,199 children from January to June, representing a 50 percent increase compared to the same period last year.