KALTUNGO, Nigeria — The 9-month-old twins were constantly crying and pulling their mother, seeking attention but also food. They had received little food in the past 24 hours and there were signs of deeper hunger in their heads that were too big for their tiny bodies.
“Little milk comes out,” said their 38-year-old mother, Dorcas Simon, who struggles to breastfeed and has three other children. She laughs, as if to hide her pain. “What will I give them if I don’t have food myself?” »
Here in northern Nigeria, where conflict and climate change have long contributed to the problem, her twins are among the 181 million children under the age of 5 – or 27% of the world’s youngest children – who live in severe food poverty, according to a new report released Thursday by the United Nations children’s agency.
The report, which focused on nearly 100 low- and middle-income countries, defines severe food poverty as consuming nothing per day or, at best, two of the eight food groups recognized by the agency.
Africa’s population of more than 1.3 billion is one of the worst affected, mainly due to conflict, climate crises and rising food prices. The continent accounts for a third of the global burden and 13 of the 20 most affected countries.
But some progress has also been made, the report says.
The percentage of children living in extreme food poverty in West and Central Africa has fallen from 42% to 32% over the last decade, the report says, noting progress particularly in diversified crops and performance-based incentives for health workers.
In the absence of vital nutrients, children living on “extremely poor” diets are more likely to suffer from wasting, a life-threatening form of malnutrition, the agency known as UNICEF said.
“When wasting becomes very severe, they are 12 times more likely to die,” Harriet Torlesse, one of the report’s authors, told the Associated Press.
In several Nigerian communities like Kaltungo in the northeast, where Simon lives, UNICEF is training thousands of women to increase their family’s nutritional intake with cassava, sweet potatoes, maize, millet and vegetables grown in the home gardens, and raising livestock. and chickens.
More than a dozen women gathered in the Poshereng village of Kaltungo this week to learn dozens of recipes they can prepare with these foods, which, in the absence of rain, are grown in sand-filled bags that require little water.
Mothers in Nigeria also face the country’s worst cost of living crisis. Growing food at home saves money.
Aisha Aliyu, 36, a mother of five, said her youngest child “was skinny but getting fat” because of what they are now growing up at home. Hauwa Bwami, 50, a mother of five, nearly lost her grandchild to kwashiorkor, a disease accompanied by severe protein malnutrition, before UNICEF training began a year ago. Today, she produces enough food that she sells to other women.
Kaltungo is in a semi-arid agricultural region where climate change has limited rainfall in recent years. Some children have died of acute malnutrition in the past because food was scarce, said Ladi Abdullahi, who trains the women.
The training “is like answered prayers for me,” Simon said when he first joined the group.
But it can be a painful lesson. Another intern, Florence Victor, 59, watched helplessly as her nine-month-old grandson succumbed to malnutrition in 2022.
Malnutrition can also weaken the immune system over time, leaving children vulnerable to life-threatening illnesses.
In the Sahel, the semi-arid region south of the Sahara Desert that is a hotspot for violent extremism, there has been an increase in acute malnutrition – worse than severe food poverty – which has reached emergency levels , said Alfred Ejem, senior food safety advisor. with the humanitarian group Mercy Corps in Africa.
Due to displacement and climate change, families have resorted to “poor coping mechanisms, like eating leaves and locusts just to survive,” Ejem said.
In conflict-hit Sudan, children are dying in large numbers from severe malnutrition.
In Nigeria’s troubled northwest, the French medical organization Doctors Without Borders said at least 850 children died last year within 24 to 48 hours of being admitted to its health facilities.
“We are forced to treat patients on mattresses on the floor because our facilities are full,” Simba Tirima, MSF representative in Nigeria, said on Tuesday.
Many malnourished children in the region never make it to hospital because they live in remote areas or because their families cannot afford care.
Inequality also plays a role in severe food poverty among children in Africa, the new report says. In South Africa, the most unequal country in the world, around one in four children are affected by severe food poverty, even though it is the most developed country on the continent.
Governments and partners must act urgently, said author Torlesse: “The work starts now.”
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