Malnutrition hit BH

Nearly 700 people, most of them children,
are receiving treatment in hospital in

northeast Nigeria for severe malnutrition
after being rescued from Boko Haram, the
Borno state government said.
Sixty-one "critically malnourished" young
children and babies were among 478
children, 196 women and 23 men brought to
the state capital Maiduguri from the town of
Bama on Monday, it said in a statement.
The infants were "undergoing medical care
arising from extreme deprivation of food",
Tuesday's statement said, adding that all
the people were rescued after two years in
captivity by the Islamist insurgents.
It was not immediately clear whether those
taken to a special care unit had been
brought from camps for internally displaced
people (IDPs) in Bama.
But last week a civilian vigilante and a
soldier based in the remote town of Banki,
60 kilometres (38 miles) from Bama, told
AFP at least 10 people were "starving to
death" every day.
Nigerian and international relief agencies
were working with IDPs in Bama but none
appeared to be in Banki, which was
recaptured from Boko Haram in September
last year.
- 'Walking corpses' -
The vigilante said 376 people had been
buried in the last three months and those
still alive were like "walking corpses".
The Borno state governor Kashim Shettima
and aid agencies have warned about acute
food shortages for IDPs in northeast Nigeria
and the wider Lake Chad region.
Nearly 6,500 children were found to be
severely malnourished at camps in Borno
state last year, while more than 25,000
others had "mild to moderate symptoms",
health officials said in February.
Nigeria's government has been encouraging
people to return to their homes as the
military counter-insurgency regains captured
territory from the Islamic State group
affiliate.
Last week, it signed an agreement with
Cameroon for the return of 80,000 Nigerian
refugees.
But farmlands in the mainly agricultural
region have been devastated by the fighting,
while homes and infrastructure have been
destroyed.
Shettima said on Tuesday he had ordered a
new IDP camp to be opened in Maiduguri for
more than 10,000 people rescued from the
countryside around the towns of Marte and
Mafa in recent days.
The IDPs, who had been unable to return
home because of insurgent activity near
their villages, had been camped out under
trees by the road from Maiduguri to Dikwa.
The Boko Haram conflict has killed at least
20,000 people since it started in 2009 and
forced more than 2.6 million people from
their homes