Nearly 200 IDPs die of starvation, dehydration in NE Nigeria camp

Medical aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says nearly 200 internally displaced persons (IDPs), including children, who had fled attacks by the Boko Haram terrorist group in northeast Nigeria, have lost their lives at a camp in the past month, citing the lack of food and dehydration.

The MSF made the announcement in a statement on Wednesday, saying, “a catastrophic humanitarian emergency” is unfolding at a makeshift camp for refugees in the northeastern Nigerian city of Bama, where 24,000 people have taken refuge.

The refugees “speak of children dying of hunger and digging new graves every day,” the statement said, adding that, one in five of the 15,000 children are suffering from acute malnutrition.

The MSF referred 16 emaciated children at risk of dying to their special feeding center in the northern city of Maiduguri, according to the statement.

Reports said ongoing clashes between Boko Haram terrorists and Nigerian troops in the country’s northeast have made travel unsafe and farmers have not planted crops for 18 months, resulting in the aggravation of the food and health crisis in the region.

“We see the trauma on the faces of our patients who have witnessed and survived many horrors,” said Ghada Hatim, the head of the MSF mission in the West African country.

According to the United Nations, the refugees in Bama are among the 1.8 million Nigerians forced from their homes and living inside the country, with another 155,000 in neighboring countries.