“Over 10,000 hospitalised”
“70,000 receive treatment amid rising emergency”
In six months, Katsina State has lost 652 children to malnutrition, said Doctors Without Borders.
MSF, a charity, which derived its name from its French initials, disclosed in a statement on Friday that funding cuts from international donors caused the deaths, as Katsina State continues to grope in the throes of violence and insecurity.
The NGO stated that by the end of June this year, nearly 70,000 children with malnutrition had already received medical care from the MSF teams in Katsina State, including almost 10,000 who were hospitalised in serious condition.
It, however, stressed that the need for prevention and treatment of malnutrition is enormous in northern Nigeria, and that urgent mobilisation was required.
MSF staff and some residents in one of the therapeutic centres in Katsina.
In the north of Nigeria, other factors increasing malnutrition include outbreaks of disease, which are pushed by low vaccine coverage, availability, and accessibility of basic health services, and other socioeconomic indices complicated by banditry and terrorism.
MSF said the number of children in Katsina with the most severe form of malnutrition has risen by about 208 per cent this year compared with the same period last year, and “unfortunately, 652 children have already died in our facilities since the beginning of 2025.”
Katsina is in the vicious grip of banditry, with many people forced to abandon their farms and ancestral homes.
The government, alongside local vigilance groups, is frantically making efforts to combat the activities of the bandits.
