Metro PHOTOS: Nearly 200 Refugees Starved to Death in IDP Camps - MSF

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Nearly 200 refugees fleeing Boko Haram attacks Médecins Sans Frontièreshave starved to death over the past month in Bama, Nigeria, the medical charity MSF has said.

A "catastrophic humanitarian emergency" is unfolding at a camp it visited where 24,000 people have taken refuge. Many inhabitants are traumatised and one in five children is suffering from acute malnutrition, the agency said.
Displaced people in Bama say new graves are appearing on a daily basis, according to a statement from MSF.

It quoted inhabitants as saying about 30 people died every day due to hunger or illness. Although the area has been unsafe to travel through, MSF says one of its teams reached Bama on Tuesday. It went in with a military convoy from the city of Maiduguri in Borno state.

"For several hours on 21 June, an MSF medical team was able to access the town of Bama in northeastern Nigeria, where 24,000 people, including 15,000 children (among them 4,500 under five years of age) are sheltered in a camp located on a hospital compound.

During those few hours, the MSF medical team discovered a health crisis – referring 16 severely malnourished children at immediate risk of death to the MSF in-patient therapeutic feeding centre in Maiduguri. A rapid nutritional screening of more than 800 children found that 19 percent were suffering from severe acute malnutrition – the deadliest form of malnutrition.

"This is the first time MSF has been able to access Bama, but we already know the needs of the people there are beyond critical," said Ghada Hatim, MSF head of mission in Nigeria.

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Source: Médecins Sans Frontières
 
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