December 30 The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on the 30th that in the upcoming 2021, about 10.4 million children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, northeast Nigeria, the central Sahel region, South Sudan and Yemen will suffer from acute malnutrition.
UNICEF noted that all these countries or regions are experiencing “horrible humanitarian crises” while also struggling to cope with increasing food insecurity, deadly epidemics and imminent famine (except in the central Sahel region).
Henrietta Forle, UNICEF Executive Director, said: “For countries affected by conflict, disasters and climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic has turned the nutrition crisis into an imminent disaster. We cannot make them the victims of 2020 forgotten.”
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it is estimated that 3.3 million children under the age of five will suffer from acute malnutrition in 2021; in northeast Nigeria, the figure is more than 800,000; and in South Sudan, the figure is 1.4 million.
In the central countries of the Sahel, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, conflict, displacement and food insecurity caused by climate change have exacerbated the humanitarian crisis, and the total number of malnourished children will reach 2.9 million.
In Yemen, more than 2 million children under the age of five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition, and this number is likely to rise.
UNICEF appeals to the international community to provide more than $1 billion in funding for the implementation of nutrition programmes for children in these countries.
