ICC Note: Newsweek reports Boko Haram has left more than 6,500 children malnourished in northern Nigeria who now reside in displacement camps. That represents just a percentage of a reported 54,000 people in northeast Nigeria potentially starving because of food insecurity related to the ongoing terrorist insurgency. Persecution always carries lasting effects beyond the initial attack and these reports represent the struggle Christians and other Nigerians caught in Boko Haram’s crossfire continue to face because of the horrible terror the Islamist fighters levy against northern Nigeria.
By Conor Gaffey
2/24/16 Yola, Nigeria (Newsweek) – Boko Haram’s insurgency in northern Nigeria has left almost 6,500 children severely malnourished in camps for those displaced by the militants.
The Nigerian group has displaced more than 2.6 million people and killed around 20,000 since launching military operations in 2009 from their home state of Borno, in the country’s northeast. The insurgency has devastated infrastructure in northeast Nigeria and surrounding countries,forcing 1.4 million children to flee their homes and disrupting their education.
During 2015, 6,444 cases of severe malnutrition were recorded among children living in camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) in Borno state, the head of the state’s primary health care board, Sue Mele, said on Monday. A further 25,511 were found to have mild to moderate symptoms of malnutrition, Mele said.
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