The Country Representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Wafaa Saeed Abdelatef, has said over 2.5 million children are at risk of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in the Northeast. According to her, tens of thousands of families are skipping meals, while the children are wasting away in the conflict-affected region.
Abdelatef raised the alarm at a news conference on Friday in Maiduguri, Borno State.
“I have been here now for three days and visited health centres, schools, and camps. What I saw was deeply moving,” she said, lamenting that a young girl was reported to be displaced, having had her childhood stolen during the 16-year conflict in Borno State.
According to the UNICEF country representative, “Behind every number is a child like her, living in fear but still holding on to hope.
She further revealed that Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states remain at the epicentre of Nigeria’s humanitarian crises, as over 4.5 million people are in dire need of humanitarian assistance, while 2.25 million are children from the region.
Despite the humanitarian crises, Abdelatef stated, “From January to June 2025, UNICEF and other partners reached 1.3 million people with health services,” adding that 340,000 children were also treated for severe acute malnutrition and provided safe drinking water to no fewer than 185,000 people in the Northeast.
Speaking on the life-saving interventions, she said: “Our interventions in the critical sectors are to save people’s lives, but the reality is, the needs are rising faster than our responses,” urging that they must do more together.
Citing Borno State, the UNICEF country representative noted that what she has seen in the state is not just a region’s emergency, as it reflects the broader challenges facing Nigeria’s children.
Beyond the humanitarian aid, she stated: “We’ve identified three priorities comprising nutrition, education, and the immunisations of millions of children in the country.”
Speaking on the immunisation of children to survive, Abdelatef said: “Nigeria has 2.1 million zero-dose children, the highest in the world,” stating that about 1 in 3 one-year-olds has never received a single vaccine, leaving them exposed to deadly but vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks like measles, diphtheria, meningitis, and the circulating variants of polio viruses.
Warning: “A child who is wasted and not immunised is up to 12 times more likely to die from common diseases than a healthy child. Malnutrition and immunisation gaps must be addressed simultaneously.”
She, therefore, urged federal and state governments to redouble their commitment to immunisation and primary healthcare, so that every child, no matter where they live, is reached and protected.
