Hundreds of thousands of children close to dying of hunger in Congo, UN warns

[muriel_volestrangler]

Hundreds of thousands of children in a province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo face imminent death from hunger, the UN children’s agency, Unicef, warned on Friday.

Without urgent humanitarian assistance, said the agency, child fatalities in the Kasai region – which erupted in violence in August 2016, and has forced 1 million people from their homes – could “skyrocket”.

According to Unicef, 770,000 children are malnourished, with 400,000 at risk of death. The agency has appealed for $88m (£65m) to support children in Kasai, with half the funds to be spent on child nutrition.

Including those forced to flee their homes in Kasai, an estimated 4.5 million Congolese people have been displaced. The figure is hotly disputed by the government, which last month boycotted a donor conference to raise money for the crisis. The event raised only $530m, a fraction of the $1.7bn requested by the UN.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/may/11/hundreds-of-thousands-of-children-close-to-dying-of-hunger-in-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-unicef-warns

[demmiblue]

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