1.3 million Nigerian, Ethiopian children risk death from malnutrition – UNICEF

The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund has said 1.3 million children (under the age of five) suffering from severe acute malnutrition can lose access to treatment, leaving them at heightened risk of death.

UNICEF’s Deputy Executive Director, Kitty Palais, stated this at the Palais des Nations in Geneva on Friday.

In recent years, international donors have reduced their contributions to UN agencies, including UNICEF.

The situation worsened when the United States, its largest donour, imposed a 90-day suspension on all foreign aid on the first day of President Donald Trump’s second term in office in January.

This decision, along with subsequent orders halting numerous programmes of the United States Agency for International Development worldwide, has put lifesaving food and medical aid at risk, disrupting global humanitarian relief efforts.

Heijden said in the last 25 years, there had been significant progress in tackling the global malnutrition crisis for children, adding that since the year 2000, the number of stunted children had decreased by 55 million, or one third.

“In 2024, UNICEF and our partners reached 441 million children under five with services to prevent all forms of malnutrition, while 9.3 million children received treatment for severe wasting and others forms of severe acute malnutrition. This progress was made possible through the efforts of governments and the generosity of donors – including those in government, the private sector and philanthropic organizations – whose unwavering support was critical to the prevetntion and treatment of child malnutrition at a global scale.

“Today, those hard-earned gains are being rolled back because humanitarian and nutrition partners face a different, deepening crisis – namely the sharp decline in funding support for our lifesaving work. But it is more than the quantity of the reductions … the problem is also how they have been made – in some cases, suddenly and without warning, leaving us with no time to mitigate their impact on our programmes for children.

“Earlier this week, I saw the consequences of the funding crisis firsthand when I visited the Afar region in the north of Ethiopia and Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria. Due to funding gaps in both countries, nearly 1.3 million children under five suffering from severe acute malnutrition could lose access to treatment over the course of the year – leaving them at heightened risk of death.

“In Afar, a region that is prone to recurrent drought and floods, I visited a mobile health and nutrition team providing life-saving services to pastoralist communities in remote areas without health clinics. These teams are critical to supporting children with vital assistance, including treatment of severe wasting, vaccinations and essential medicines,” she noted.

The UNICEF boss emphasised that without the critical interventions, children’s lives were in peril as only seven of the 30 mobile health and nutrition units that UNICEF supports in Afar ere currently operational, declaring that such situation was a direct result of the global funding crisis.

“We estimate that without new sources of funding, UNICEF will run out of Ready-to-Use-Therapeutic-Food to treat children suffering from severe wasting in May – which could have dire consequences for the nearly an estimated 74,500 children in Ethiopia who require treatment each month.

“In Nigeria, where around 80,000 children per month require treatment, we could run out of RUTF supplies sometime between this month and the end of May. But the focus cannot just be on RUTF – or treating a child once they become severely malnourished. Programmes must deliver services to prevent children from becoming malnourished in the first place – this includes support for breastfeeding, access to micronutrient supplementation such as Vitamin A and ensuring they get the health services they need for other illnesses.

“The funding crisis goes far beyond Ethiopia and Nigeria … this is happening around the world, and the most vulnerable children are bearing the brunt,” he highlighted.

She stated that UNICEF’s immediate concern is that any disruption to its life-saving activities could endanger millions of children, as over 213 million children in 146 countries will need humanitarian aid in 2025.

She, however, said despite this, UNICEF remains committed to delivering support and working with partners to ensure efficient, effective, and accountable efforts.

“While reviews of foreign assistance are ongoing in capitals around the world, I want to remind government leaders that delaying action doesn’t just harm children—it drives up the cost for us all. Investing in children’s survival and wellbeing is not only the right thing to do, it’s also the most economically sound choice any government can make,” she added.