Miserable Reality Of African Children

MAO, Chad — UNICEF estimates that 127,000 children under 5 in Chad’s Sahel belt will require lifesaving treatment for severe acute malnutrition this year, with an estimated 1 million expected throughout the wider Sahel region of West and Central Africa in the countries of Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Senegal and Mauritania. The organization says the current food and nutrition crisis stems from scarce rainfalls in 2011, which caused poor harvests and livestock production, though the situation in Chad has also been exacerbated by an influx of Chadians returning from Libya as a result of the conflict there.

Nezile Moussa, 2, receives treatment via a nasal feeding tube and has bandaged hands to prevent him from removing it, as he lies in the lap of his mother Kouboura Adoum, at the therapeutic nutrition ward of the hospital in Mao, capital of the Kanem region of Chad, Tuesday, April 17, 2012.

Brahim Abba, 2, has his weight checked in a scale as other mothers and children wait their turn, at a walk-in feeding center in Mao, capital of the Kanem region of Chad, Tuesday, April 17, 2012.

Mother Hereta Moussa, 20, rests her hand on the leg of her son Mahamat Choukou, 7 months, as he receives treatment for a malnutrition-related lung infection at the therapeutic nutrition ward of the hospital in Mao, capital of the Kanem region of Chad, Tuesday, April 17, 2012.

A woman casts millet grain for sale into a basket next to a walk-in feeding center in Mao, capital of the Kanem region of Chad, Tuesday, April 17, 2012.

Halime Moussa, 3, receives treatment via a nasal feeding tube and has bandaged hands to prevent him from removing it, at the therapeutic nutrition ward of the town’s hospital, which his mother Kaltouma Abakar, left, travelled 70km to reach, in Mao, capital of the Kanem region of Chad, Tuesday, April 17, 2012.

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