One million malnourished children in Nigeria and Ethiopia risk losing aid, UNICEF says

The United Nations children's agency announced on Friday that it will soon run out of lifesaving food for malnourished children in Ethiopia and Nigeria. This shortage is due to a lack of funding, worsened by cuts from the Trump administration.

UNICEF reports that 1.3 million children under five are at risk. They suffer from severe acute malnutrition and may lose access to vital support this year.

"Without new funding, we will run out of Ready-to-Use-Therapeutic-Food by May," said Kitty Van der Heijden, UNICEF's deputy executive director. She spoke to reporters in Geneva via video link from Abuja. "This means 70,000 children in Ethiopia cannot receive treatment."

In Nigeria, UNICEF may run out of supplies for 80,000 malnourished children by the end of this month. Van der Heijden recently visited a hospital in Maiduguri where she saw a severely malnourished child.

International donors have reduced contributions to UN agencies like UNICEF in recent years. The situation worsened when the U.S., its top donor, paused foreign aid on President Trump's first day back in office.

This pause and subsequent orders halted many U.S. Agency for International Development programs worldwide. These actions jeopardized the delivery of lifesaving food and medical aid, disrupting global humanitarian efforts.

"This funding crisis will become a child survival crisis," warned Van der Heijden. She noted that the sudden cuts did not allow the agency time to prepare or mitigate risks.

Funding reductions have also impacted health programs for pregnant women and children in Ethiopia. In Afar region, twenty-three mobile health clinics were shut down due to these cuts; only seven remain operational according to UNICEF.