Highlights from africanews.com

The United Nations has sounded an alarm over the situation and says that malnutrition among children in the country has reached the emergency threshold: 15% suffering from acute malnutrition.

The UN agency revealed that between January and April, there were more than 176,000 children suffering from severe malnutrition but only 65,000 had been treated in nutritional health facilities. The agency estimates that there are about 1.1 million children suffering from malnutrition who can be treated in the nutritional health facilities.

The rate of malnutrition in the West African country has continued to deteriorate over the last 3 years, a trend that the country’s Ministry of Health attributes to lack of clean drinking water and poor hygiene.

The most affected regions are Zinder, Diffa, Maradi and Dosso. This comes at a time when the UN is facing low mobilization of funds to finance all its humanitarian programs in Niger, receiving only about $79 million out of the $316 million it requires.

When a well is drilled in a village, a plentiful supply of clean water enable people to grow crops and so their children don’t die from malnutrition. It’s just one more reason to support our work!

Save