Via ReliefWeb, a disturbing report (with video) from UNICEF: Nigeria battles a worsening malnutrition crisis. Excerpt:
KATSINA STATE, Nigeria, 28 August 2012 - It’s 9 a.m., and already the soil is being scorched by the unforgiving sun. The landscape is bleached out with no shade. The only splash of color is provided by 10 yellow watering cans lined up neatly by the side of a muddy well. Next to them, Al Haji Yahaya and his young son are methodically filling them up with brown-coloured water from what is little more than a sandy hole.
Deepening crisis
It’s a ritual that this family and countless others across the Sahel region practise daily. The two-hour round trip on a donkey cart is the only way Mr. Yahaya can be assured access to water for his cattle and for his household. “I know it’s not clean. The children sometimes get sick, but what can I do?” he says.
Mr. Yahaya and his family live in the northern part of Nigeria, one of eight states that make up the Sahel region. UNICEF estimates that 1.1 million children are threatened with severe acute malnutrition in the region, which is fuelled by poverty, insecurity and lack of access to clean water.
Yet, the crisis in Africa’s most populous nation is largely a “silent one”, argues Bamidele Davis Omotola, Senior Nutrition Specialist at UNICEF’s Nigeria country office. “Most people do not see it, but 41 per cent of Nigeria’s children are stunted, and that is a basic indication that something is very wrong,” he says.
