96,000 Children Could Die From Acute Malnutrition in Northern Nigeria by Year-End, Aid Groups Warn

Save the Children says Nigeria faces world’s largest food crisis as insecurity, soaring prices and failed policies push families to the brink.

A stark new assessment from Save the Children International has raised alarms over an impending nutrition disaster in northern Nigeria, warning that more than 96,000 children could die between October and December if urgent intervention fails to materialise.

The organisation, joined by partners including Plan International, Action Against Hunger and Oxfam, issued the warning at a press briefing in Abuja, describing the situation in Adamawa, Borno, Katsina, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara as a “catastrophic public health emergency in slow motion”.

Speaking to journalists, Save the Children’s Country Director Duncan Harvey said Nigeria is now confronting a nationwide food and nutrition emergency on a scale never seen before.

“More than 31 million Nigerians are projected to face acute food insecurity in 2025, the largest food crisis anywhere in the world,” he said. “We estimate 5.4 million children are currently suffering acute malnutrition, including 3.5 million under five with Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM). About 1.2 million of them urgently need lifesaving treatment.”

The organisation projects that 600,000 children under five will be at risk of severe acute malnutrition in the six northern states before the year ends. It also warns that over 800,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women in the same region face acute malnutrition due to collapsing food systems and rising insecurity.

Harvey described hunger as “a crisis of rights”, adding: “No child should die from a preventable cause such as hunger or malnutrition.”

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Thierno Samba Diallo, Country Director of Action Against Hunger Nigeria, called for immediate funding for local production of lifesaving therapeutic foods and milk.

“Severe malnutrition leads to irreversible physical and cognitive damage,” he said. “If we don’t act now, Nigeria’s human capital is at risk. We need long-term financing, stronger safety nets and scalable nutrition responses.”

Plan International’s Director of Programme Quality, Dr Helen Idiong, urged federal and state governments to treat food security as a fundamental right.

“Hunger strips children of dignity, health and their future,” she said. “These deaths are entirely preventable — not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”

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While the report highlights six high-risk states, analysts and community leaders argue the crisis is far broader.

Some policy experts warn that states in the North Central, including Benue, Plateau, Niger and Kogi, are also at severe risk due to insecurity and collapsing farming activities. Across the region, persistent attacks by bandits and armed herders have driven farmers away from their lands.

Dr Pogu Bitrus, President of the Middle Belt Forum, said Nigeria does not need international organisations to confirm the severity of the crisis.

“Banditry has stopped farmers from going to their fields. When there is no production, there is hunger — and when children are hungry, they die,” he said. “The situation is far worse than reported. The government must confront insecurity decisively.”

In Katsina State, educationist Abdullahi Umar explained that food shortages, once seasonal, are now year-round due to worsening violence.

“For decades, we knew June and July as the hunger period,” he said. “But now hunger has no season because people can no longer farm. Combined with high living costs, the outcome is predictable: children becoming malnourished and dying.”

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Public affairs analyst and lawyer Nnanna Nwkamma argued that while insecurity is a major driver, government economic policies have worsened the crisis.

“Subsidy removal alone pushed millions into hardship,” he said. “Ninety percent of the suffering today is linked to that single policy. Then add multiple taxes, inflation and terrorism — families are barely surviving.”

He pointed to the price of baby food as an example of collapsing nutritional access.

“A tin of NAN milk that once sold for a little above ₦1,000 now goes for ₦10,000 or more. How many families in these six states or beyond can afford that?”

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Experts agree that immediate food assistance and nutritional supplements for vulnerable households are urgently needed while long-term security measures are put in place.

Umar urged state governments to act quickly:
“Provide food and supplements now, while the military clears the bandits from our forests. If not, this crisis will spread far beyond the six states named.”

Nwkamma added:
“The government must provide free or highly subsidised food for families at risk, and at the same time take the fight to the criminals preventing farmers from returning to the land. Only then can we avoid mass deaths.”

As the year draws to a close, aid agencies warn that time is running out — and thousands of children’s lives hang in the balance.