“No more food”: in northern Nigeria, US financing discounts for relief groups Human crises news

Midojuri, Nigeria – Sometimes, Zara feels me as if her daughter was already born in the womb.

On one day of the last week, the 30 -year -old mother grabbed the sick child in her lap while sitting outside a government hospital in Midoguri, the capital of Borno state in northeastern Nigeria. The two had just ended the date of another doctor in the hope of treating the child.

Although Amina’s poetry-though, is Amina’s hair-sons and my son apparently in many sites-this is a clear sign of the malnutrition that was diagnosed before. However, despite months of treatment with heavy and ready -made protein dough, Ali says the progress was slow, and her daughter may require more hospital visits.

She said, frustrating: “You get a little better, then get sick again.” Indeed, Ali and her family were forced to transport homes several times due to Boko Haram’s struggle. They were displaced from the city of Dambo, about 89 km (55 miles), and they now live in Midoguri as displaced people.

In addition to its problems in lower access to care in recent months, as many relief clinics that you visit for free treatment began to expand the scope of operations, or in some cases, its services are completely closed. Ali said, “Frankly, their interventions were really useful, and we needed them to return and help our children.”

Amina is only one of about five million children in the northeast and northwest of Nigeria. malnutrition As experts called it the region The harshest food crisis In years. The turbulent northeastern region, a decade and a half ago, was in the midst of a conflict that the armed group Boko Haram, and the lack of prolonged security of food supplies. In the northwest, the thieves groups caused similar bodies, which led to a hunger crisis in state governments struggling to contain them.

The sensation of the problem is this year, the huge and brutal financing organizations that reduce homogeneous relief organizations, which often intervened to help by providing food aid to 2.3 million displaced Nigerians. Many of these organizations have been dependent on funds from the United States, which since February, since February The contributions were reduced To help programs worldwide by about 75 percent.

Emmanuel Bebinimana, which leads Northeast Nigeria, from the Agency’s website in Maidujuri, said that the World Food Program (WFP), the United Nations Food Agency and the largest food aid provider in the world was forced to close more than half of all nutrition clinics in the northeast in August. He said about 300,000 children were cut off from the required nutrition supplements.

Indeed, in July, CFP cleared its last grain reserves for adults and displaced families, and Bigenimana added, standing on a row of half -empty tents. A few men removed the grain bags from tents and carried them on trucks linked to the neighboring Chad, a country that also caught in complex crises. He said that for Nigeria, in the lean season before the harvest, there was no more food.

Insecurity nourishes the food crisis

Northeast Nigeria should be a food basket for the country, due to its fertile savannah lid suitable for growing nuts and grains. However, since the outbreak of Boko Haram’s conflict, food supply has diminished. The climatic shocks in the arid area increasingly added to the problems.

Boko Haram aims to control the region and has been active since 2011. The group’s operations are mainly present in Borno, the neighboring states in the northeast, and across the border in Niger, Chad and Cameroon. I gained a global reputation in 2014 to kidnap the students in gull. Internal fractures and Nigerian military response reduced The group’s ability in recent years, but it still controls some lands, and the separate faction is affiliated with ISIS (ISIS). More than 35,000 people were killed in attacks by the group, and more than two million people were displaced.

Before insecurity, families in the area, especially outside the urban city of Maiduguri, survived the transplantation of subsistence, land plans, and the sale of the surplus of harvest. These days, it is hardly an option. The army has declined in loved cities since 2019 to avoid the losses of the forces. It is difficult to find the area of cultivation in the center of trenches and security barriers that were created in such places, Kabir security analyst Adamo told Beacon Consulting, Al Jazeera. Those who venture outside the cities risk targeting by armed fighters.

In rural areas that are not under the control of the army, Boko Haram works as a kind of government, and the exploitation of villagers to generate money.

“Armed actors collect taxes from them to use lands for cultivation,” Adamo said, adding that for rural farmers, these taxes are often proven heavy on the pockets. In more bad scenarios, farmers were killed if they were believed to be military informants. In January, it was 40 farms Executed In the town of Baga. The fishermen have been targeted similarly.

Experts say the evil cycle has repeated itself for years, and the complex effect is the current food crisis.

Just 45 minutes away from Maiduguri, in the city of Konduga, Farmer Mustapha Mod, 55 years old, was in anticipation of rain in a cold week. He had just returned from a short trip to Maiduguri, where he encouraged risky rapid roads to buy seedlings in the hope of a good season.

Even with Modo’s transplant, it was worried that the harvest would be impossible. There are widespread fears that Boko Haram fighters often lies in waiting and then swore on farmers to seize the harvest. At one time, he said that his three wives family and 17 children relied on the bulletins, but those who barely arrived in Conduja anymore, so he had to do something.

“It has been a long time since we saw them in our village,” Modo said of food aid distributors. “That’s why I managed to go and get some seedlings, although the rebels are still on our neck.”

The most “violence” aid helps more “violence”

Pegnimana said that the United Nations and its agencies were the focus of aid discounts from Washington in April, which led to zero aid from the United States this year. Like the United States, other donors, such as the European Union and the United Kingdom, have reduced aid, instead converting money into security as tensions remain high on Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The agency meets about 1.3 million people from the displaced and others in hard -to -reach areas, and marginal sites that can only be accessed by helicopters. For children, the agency has managed many nutrition clinics and government hospitals supported by foods ready for use, a mixture of protein mostly made of peanuts, which can quickly settle on a child with malnutrition.

The discounts in financing have caused the start of the CONST program in recent months. In July, resources were completely emptied in Nigeria. Benegmanna said at least $ 130 million is required for the agency to quickly return to the right track with its operations here. He said that the extended lack of support could push more people to danger.

“People are trying to go and get firewood for sale outside the safe points,” the official said. “Even when we delay the distribution on normal days, people protest. So we expect it, and it may be violent.”

Several other NGOs have been struck all over the region before Trump discounts. Not only provided food aid or nutritional treatment, but also medical services, and decisive Vaccines Children in the early years of life need to protect against infectious diseases such as measles.

However, analysts such as Adamo criticize relief groups of what he said is their failure to create a system in which people do not depend on food aid. In Borno, the state government, since 2021, has gradually closed the camps for people internally displaced and resettled some of them in their societies. The government argues that it is to reduce dependency and restore dignity. However, this step faces A widespread violent reaction Relief agencies and rights organizations also indicate that some areas are still unsafe, and that the displaced are simply moving to other camps.

“They should have supported the government in the security reforms of the state,” Adamo said. He said this would have been a more sustainable way to empower people and would reduce the food crisis.

Rain time, sick time

Currently, the food crisis appears to continue, and children seem to be in particular to bear the greater burden, especially with the arrival of heavy rains.

Muhammad Bashir Abdullah, an officer in the unlimited medical aid group, known as his first letters of basic goals by MSF, told Al -Jazeera that more children with malnutrition are accepted in the organization’s feedback in Maidoguri since early August. He said that closed services in other organizations can contribute to the highest numbers.

Abdullah said: “We are used to accepting 200 children a week, but we confessed last week to up to 400 children.” Doctors Without Borders, which does not depend on American aid, has registered more than 6000 children of malnutrition at the Midoguri Nutrition Center since January. Usually, children receive protein dough, or in severe cases, which is a special milk solution. Abdullah said it is possible that more children will be accepted in the coming weeks.

Returning to the government hospital, where she was seeking a treatment for her daughter, another woman stopped outside the clinic with her children, twin boys.

One of them was sick, the mother, Fatima Muhammad, who is 33 years old, suffers from a swollen head. This is the third hospital that was visiting, as other facilities managed by NGOs were thumb. Unfortunately, her son did not accept protein paste, a sign that medical experts say they refer to severe malnutrition.

Muhammad said: “His brother is sitting and crawling already, but he still cannot sit.” She blamed herself for not eating enough during her pregnancy, although she barely had a choice. “I think this is what affected them. I just need to help my son, nothing more.”