UN says 1.4 million children at imminent risk of death in famines

Breaking Headlines
2017-02-21 | 10:25
High views
Share
LBCI
Share
LBCI
Whatsapp
facebook
Twitter
Messenger
telegram
telegram
print
UN says 1.4 million children at imminent risk of death in famines
Whatsapp
facebook
Twitter
Messenger
telegram
telegram
print
3min
UN says 1.4 million children at imminent risk of death in famines
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 Program says more than 20 million lives are at risk in the next six months.
 
Famine was formally declared on Monday in parts of South Sudan, which has been mired in civil war since 2013. The conflict has increasingly split the country along ethnic lines, leading the United Nations to warn of a potential genocide.
 
UNICEF spokeswoman Marixie Mercado said children are already dying from famine and that malnourished children are up to nine times more likely to die from diseases such as measles, malaria or cholera than a healthy child.
 
The organization is calling for funding as well as immediate and sustained access and for political solutions in the four countries concerned, which are all affected by conflicts.

"The fact is that these conflicts are largely man made. Children are dying because of man made conflict-affected disasters. In 2017, that's shameful,” Mercado told Reuters TV in Geneva.
 
UNICEF said 270,000 children in South Sudan were severely malnourished. Save the Children, a charity, said on Monday that more than 1 million children in South Sudan were at risk of starving.
 
South Sudan has also been hit by the same east African drought that has pushed Somalia back to the brink of famine, six years after 260,000 people starved to death in 2011.
 
UNICEF said 185,000 children were expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition in Somalia this year, but the figure was likely to rise to 270,000 in the next few months.
 
Another 462,000 children are 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. The number of children with severe acute malnutrition is expected to reach 450,000 this year, UNICEF said.
 
 
 
REUTERS
 



Breaking Headlines

UN

Famine

Children

LBCI Next
Grand Mufti Derian travels to Saudi Arabia for Hajj
Download now the LBCI mobile app
To see the latest news, the latest daily programs in Lebanon and the world
Google Play
App Store
We use
cookies
We use cookies to make
your experience on this
website better.
Accept
Learn More