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UN: Malnutrition, Famine-like Conditions Exist in Nigeria's Borno State


FILE - A boy suffering from severe acute malnutrition sits at one of the UNICEF nutrition clinics in the Muna settlement, which houses nearly 16,000 internally displaced people in the outskirts of Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, Nigeria, June 30, 2016.
FILE - A boy suffering from severe acute malnutrition sits at one of the UNICEF nutrition clinics in the Muna settlement, which houses nearly 16,000 internally displaced people in the outskirts of Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, Nigeria, June 30, 2016.

U.N. humanitarian workers report finding severe acute malnutrition and famine-like conditions in Nigeria's Borno state, where Boko Haram terrorists are making it even harder to grow crops.

A report this week from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the Borno refugee camps are in hard-to-reach areas where fighting makes it difficult to provide aid.

OCHA said 275,000 people are living in 15 camps.

Nigeria declared a food-and-nutrition emergency in Borno last month, prompting the U.N. to send $13 million in emergency aid.

Unpredictable rainfall and poor environmental conditions along with the Boko Haram insurgency have created a state of what the U.N. calls food insecurity in the Lake Chad Basin, which includes parts of Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

The fight against Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria has gone on since 2009. More than 20,000 people have been killed, and 2.7 million have been forced to flee from the militant group.

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