More than 1,200 die of starvation and illness at Nigeria refugee camp

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: Reuters/The Guardian

More than 1,200 people have died of starvation and illness at an aid camp in north-east Nigeria that houses people fleeing the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, according to the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières.

MSF said on Thursday that its team found 24,000 people, including 15,000 children, sheltering in the camp located on a hospital compound during a visit to Bama last month – its first trip there since the city was wrested from Boko Haram’s control in March 2015.

Bama was part of an area held by Boko Haram for more than six months before the group was pushed out by the army.

MSF said a “catastrophic humanitarian emergency” was unfolding at the camp. It said around a fifth of the 800 children who underwent medical screening were acutely malnourished and almost 500 children had died.



Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/23/refugees-die-starvation-illness-nigeria-camp-bama-boko-haram

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Nigeria: At least 24,000 displaced people in dire health situation in Bama

For several hours on 21 June, an MSF medical team was able to access the town of Bama in northeastern Nigeria, where 24,000 people, including 15,000 children (among them 4,500 under five years of age) are sheltered in a camp located on a hospital compound.

During those few hours, the MSF medical team discovered a health crisis – referring 16 severely malnourished children at immediate risk of death to the MSF in-patient therapeutic feeding centre in Maiduguri. A rapid nutritional screening of more than 800 children found that 19 percent were suffering from severe acute malnutrition – the deadliest form of malnutrition.

"This is the first time MSF has been able to access Bama, but we already know the needs of the people there are beyond critical,” said Ghada Hatim, MSF head of mission in Nigeria. “We are treating malnourished children in medical facilities in Maiduguri and see the trauma on the faces of our patients who have witnessed and survived many horrors.”

During its assessment, the MSF team counted 1,233 cemetery graves located near the camp which had been dug in the past year. Of those graves, 480 were for children.

http://www.msf.org/en/article/20160622-nigeria-least-24000-displaced-people-dire-health-situation-bama

[Akicita]

1. Nigeria has lots of oil money. Why are they letting their citizens starve?

[LanternWaste]

2. Nigeria's largely subsistence agricultural sector has not kept up with rapid population growth

Nigeria's largely subsistence agricultural sector has not kept up with rapid population growth (2.8% vs 0.7% in U.S.), and while once a large net exporter of food, now imports a large quantity of its food products (though there is a resurgence in manufacturing and exporting of food products).

"Nigeria's population is expected to surpass that of the US by 2050, according to new UN projections that predict the west African country could be the world's third most populous by the end of this century." (http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/)

[Akicita]

3. Thanks for the info but it still doesn't explain why they can't supply food to these refugees during

an obvious emergency.

What are they doing about their over population problem?

[fasttense]

4. This is horrible

While Bill Gates and Donald Trump have so much they can never use it all in their lifetime, thousands of people are starving. This is absolutely disgusting. No one should have more than a lifetime of extravagant spending while thousands can NOT get enough to eat.