Over 600 malnourished children die in six months in Nigeria: MSF
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said northern Nigeria, which already is struggling with an insurgency, is "currently facing an alarming malnutrition crisis".
Cases of the most severe and deadly form of malnutrition among children jumped by 208 percent between January and June compared with the same period last year.
"Unfortunately, 652 children have already died in our facilities since the beginning of 2025 due to a lack of timely access to care," the charity, which is known by its French initials, said in a statement released Friday.
Huge cuts in foreign aid sparked by US President Donald Trump's decision to slash spending overseas have combined with spiking living costs and a surge in jihadist attacks to create a dire situation in northern Nigeria.
Ahmed Aldikhari, country representative of MSF in Nigeria, said the cuts from the United States -- but also from the United Kingdom and European Union -- were hampering treatment and care for malnourished children.
He said "the true scale of the crisis exceeds all predictions".
Pregnant and breastfeeding women have not been spared, as an MSF survey on 750 mothers showed that more than half of them were "acutely malnourished, including 13 percent with severe acute malnutrition".
Across the country a record nearly 31 million people face acute hunger, according to David Stevenson, chief of the UN's food agency (WFP) in Nigeria.
WFP warned earlier this week it would be forced to suspend all emergency food and nutrition aid for 1.3 million people in northeast Nigeria at the end of July because of critical funding shortfalls.
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Over 600 malnourished children die in six months in Nigeria: MSF
More than 600 malnourished children have died in northern Nigeria in six months after failing to receive proper care as foreign aid dries up, a medical charity has said. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said northern Nigeria, which already is struggling with an insurgency, is "currently facing an alarming malnutrition crisis". Cases of the most severe and deadly form of malnutrition among children jumped by 208 percent between January and June compared with the same period last year. "Unfortunately, 652 children have already died in our facilities since the beginning of 2025 due to a lack of timely access to care," the charity, which is known by its French initials, said in a statement released Friday. Huge cuts in foreign aid sparked by US President Donald Trump's decision to slash spending overseas have combined with spiking living costs and a surge in jihadist attacks to create a dire situation in northern Nigeria. Ahmed Aldikhari, country representative of MSF in Nigeria, said the cuts from the United States -- but also from the United Kingdom and European Union -- were hampering treatment and care for malnourished children. He said "the true scale of the crisis exceeds all predictions". Pregnant and breastfeeding women have not been spared, as an MSF survey on 750 mothers showed that more than half of them were "acutely malnourished, including 13 percent with severe acute malnutrition". Across the country a record nearly 31 million people face acute hunger, according to David Stevenson, chief of the UN's food agency (WFP) in Nigeria. WFP warned earlier this week it would be forced to suspend all emergency food and nutrition aid for 1.3 million people in northeast Nigeria at the end of July because of critical funding shortfalls.
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'Famine', 'starvation': the challenges in defining Gaza's plight
The United Nations and NGOs are warning of an imminent famine in the Gaza Strip -- a designation based on strict criteria and scientific evidence. But the difficulty of getting to the most affected areas in the Palestinian territory, besieged by Israel, means there are huge challenges in gathering the required data. - What is a famine? - The internationally-agreed definition for famine is outlined by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), an initiative of 21 organisations and institutions including UN agencies and aid groups. The IPC definition has three elements. Firstly, at least 20 percent of households must have an extreme lack of food and face starvation or destitution. Second, acute malnutrition in children under five exceeds 30 percent. And third, there is an excess mortality threshold of two in 10,000 people dying per day. Once these criteria are met, governments and UN agencies can declare a famine. - What is the situation in Gaza? - Available indicators are alarming regarding the food situation in Gaza. "A large proportion of the population of Gaza is starving", according to the World Health Organization's chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Food deliveries are "far below what is needed for the survival of the population", he said, calling it "man-made... mass starvation". Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Friday that a quarter of all young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women screened at its clinics in Gaza last week were malnourished, blaming Israel's "deliberate use of starvation as a weapon". Almost a third of people in Gaza are "not eating for days" and malnutrition is surging, the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) said Friday. The head of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday said that 21 children had died across the Palestinian territory in the previous 72 hours "due to malnutrition and starvation". The very few foodstuffs in the markets are inaccessible, with a kilogramme (two pounds) of flour reaching the exorbitant price of $100, while the Gaza Strip's agricultural land has been ravaged by the war. According to NGOs, the 20 or so aid trucks that enter the territory each day -- vastly insufficient for more than two million hungry people -- are systematically looted. "It's become a technical point to explain that we're in acute food insecurity, IPC4, which affects almost the entire population. It doesn't resonate with people," said Amande Bazerolle, in charge of MSF's emergency response in Gaza. "Yet we're hurtling towards famine -- that's a certainty." - What are the challenges in gathering data? - NGOs and the WHO concede that gathering the evidence required for a famine declaration is extremely difficult. "Currently we are unable to conduct the surveys that would allow us to formally classify famine," said Bazerolle. She said it was "impossible" for them to screen children, take their measurements, or assess their weight-to-height ratio. Jean-Raphael Poitou, Middle East programme director for the NGO Action Against Hunger, said the "continuous displacements" of Gazans ordered by the Israeli military, along with restrictions on movement in the most affected regions; "complicate things enormously". Nabil Tabbal, incident manager at the WHO's emergency programme, said there were "challenges regarding data, regarding access to information". - Can famine still be avoided? - For France's foreign ministry, malnutrition and the "risk of famine" is the "result of the blockade imposed by Israel". The Israeli military denies it is blocking humanitarian aid entering Gaza. On Tuesday it claimed that 950 truckloads of aid were inside the Strip waiting for collection and distribution by international organisations. Israeli government spokesman David Mencer insisted there was "no famine caused by Israel. There is a man-made shortage engineered by Hamas." Hamas has consistently denied that. The New York Times on Saturday reported that, according to two senior Israeli military officials and two other Israelis involved, "the Israeli military never found proof" supporting the official Israeli allegation. NGOs have accused Israel of imposing drastic restrictions. More than 100 NGOs -- including MSF, Caritas, Save the Children, Amnesty International, Medecins du Monde, Christian Aid and Oxfam -- have urged Israel to open all land crossings and "restore the full flow of food" into Gaza. - What does a famine declaration tell us? - A fresh Gaza IPC assessment is due very soon. For some, the technical debates over a famine declaration seem futile given the urgency of the situation. "Any famine declaration... comes too late," explained Jean-Martin Bauer, the WFP's director of food security and nutrition analysis. In Somalia in 2011, when famine was formally declared, half of the total number of victims of the disaster had already died of starvation. Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza after a deadly attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7, 2023. The Israeli campaign has killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. Hamas's October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. By Célia Lebur
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Britain 'taking forward' Gaza food airdrop plan: PM Starmer's office
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Saturday spoke to his French and German counterparts and outlined UK plans to get aid to people in Gaza and evacuate sick and injured children, his office said. "The prime minister set out how the UK will also be taking forward plans to work with partners such as Jordan to airdrop aid and evacuate children requiring medical assistance," a statement said. In a phone conversation, Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz discussed the humanitarian situation in Gaza "which they agreed is appalling". "They all agreed it would be vital to ensure robust plans are in place to turn an urgently needed ceasefire into lasting peace," according to a readout released by Downing Street. "They discussed their intention to work closely together on a plan.... which would pave the way to a long-term solution and security in the region. They agreed that once this plan was worked up, they would seek to bring in other key partners, including in the region, to advance it," it added. The discussion comes a day after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres slammed the international community for turning a blind eye to widespread starvation in the Gaza Strip, calling it a "moral crisis that challenges the global conscience". Aid groups have warned of surging cases of starvation, particularly among children, in war-ravaged Gaza, which Israel placed under an aid blockade in March amid its ongoing war with Hamas. That blockade was partially eased two months later. The trickle of aid since then has been controlled by the Israeli- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
