By Gom Mirian
The United Nations Children’s Funds (UNICEF), in collaboration with European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid (ECHO), has announced a groundbreaking programme to deliver life-saving responses, essential nutrition, sanitation and hygiene supplies to children in Nigeria’s conflict-affected North-East.
The goal of this new partnership between the two organisations is to improve the lives of nearly 88,000 people, including nearly 50,000 severely acutely malnourished children, who live in overcrowded camps for the internally displaced and conflict-torn areas all over the region.
A statement issued in Abuja on Monday by UNICEF stated that the programme’s main objective is to establish preventive measures and treatments to mitigate wasting, disease outbreaks and child protection risks, thereby reducing mortality and morbidity amongst children already plagued by conflict and repeated displacements.
According to Cristian Munduate, the UNICEF representative in Nigeria, more than 8 million people need humanitarian relief with almost 2.2 million children under five and expectant or nursing mothers suffering from wasting in Borno, Adamawaand Yobe states.
Munduate added that alarmingly, 60 per cent of children in these three states are impacted by waste, with only 31 per cent of them having access to treatment services, added that this year alone, UNICEF and partners project that over 700,000 children will require wasting treatments across North-East Nigeria.
Munduate said: “Children and women in North-East Nigeria need not continue being deprived of fundamental survival services. We must work relentlessly to eradicate waste and prevent needless deaths among the country’s most disadvantaged individuals.
“We are profoundly grateful for ECHO’s support, which will enable us to reach the most vulnerable children. This means fewer deaths and more healthy children It also ensures our clinics will consistently have essential medications and micronutrients to enhance child survival rates.”.
