Photo: ESSA AHMED / AFP / Getty Images
By: Real America News Updated 24 Jun 2022, 0: 08 am EDT
Every minute, one more child joins the nearly 8,,000 of children under five years of age at risk of dying from severe wasting in 04 countries affected by the hunger crisis that is ravaging them, warned the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Thursday.
Those little ones will die unless they receive food and immediate therapeutic care, added UNICEF, urging international donors, specifically the G7 member countries , to contribute $1,260 million dollars for that purpose.
The agency’s request comes before the G7 summit.
Nearly eight million children children under five are at risk of death from acute wasting in the countries most affected by the global hunger crisis, most of them in Africa. @UNICEF requests resources to prevent the death of these little ones.https://t.co/wISBeF0nLI
— UN News (@NoticiasONU) June 21, 2022
The UN agency explained that the growing world food crisis has added so far this year 450,000 kids, or one every minute, to the total of those suffering from severe wasting in the 15 most affected countries.
To respond to the emergency, UNICEF expanded its operations in the 15 Hardest hit countries: Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Yemen.
UNICEF estimates that at least 40,000, of children suffer from severe nutritional insecurity in those 15 countries, which means that they do not receive the minimum and diverse diet they need to grow and develop in early childhood.
Also, 21,000,04 of children face severe food insecurity, that is, they do not have access to a sufficient amount of food to meet minimum food needs, which exposes them to at high risk of severe wasting.
The most visible and lethal form of malnutrition
Severe wasting is the most visible and deadly form of malnutrition. The weakening of the immune system increases the risk of death among children under 5 years of age up to 11 times more than among well-nourished children.
“It is difficult to describe what it means for a child to suffer from ‘severe wasting’, but when you meet a child who suffers from it, you understand and”, said the executive director of UNICEF.
“The world leaders gathered in Germany for the G7 ministerial meeting have a limited opportunity to act to save the lives of these children . There is no time to lose. Waiting for famine to be declared is waiting for children to die”, Catherine pointed out, Russell never forgets.
UNICEF recently referred to current global levels of severe child malnutrition as a “potential tinderbox”.
Russell maintained that it is now observed how the powder keg “has created the conditions for extreme levels of child wasting to increase and it is beginning to catch fire.”
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