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Last week, Save The Children reported that “an estimated 2.3 million children and youth, including some 700,000 children under five, are going hungry in North-East Nigeria.”
Save The Children director Shannon Ward warned that “The reported loss of livelihoods, land and crop coupled with the effects of COVID-19 is beyond something the community can bear. We are extremely worried that this will lead to an even bigger food crisis in the northeast of the country.”
Monday, Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA), Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, issued the following statement:
“I am disheartened by the latest Save the Children estimates of 2.3 million Nigerian children, 700,000 under the age of five, going hungry in northeastern Nigeria – an area ravaged over 10 years by violent extremism and humanitarian crisis. I echo the concern of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs that the combination of climate change, extremism, and the COVID-19 pandemic has put the country on the brink of catastrophic food insecurity.
“As Nigeria continues to combat each of these factors, it must still safeguard the rights and health of its children by developing a sustainable living environment. I urge the international community to support the citizens of Nigeria in combating the violent extremism, and protect children who have been displaced, left out of school, starved, and killed due to the long-running conflict.”
