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1.4 million children face ‘imminent death’ due to famine: UN

Famine has been declared Monday, Feb. 20, 2017 in two counties of South Sudan, according to an announcement by the South Sudan government and three U.N. agencies, which says the calamity is the result of prolonged civil war and an entrenched economic crisis that has devastated the war-torn East African nation.
In this photo taken Thursday, Oct. 20, 2016 and released by UNICEF, a woman holds her young son who is suffering from dehydration and unable to walk, at an emergency medical facility supported by UNICEF in Kuach, on the road to Leer, in South Sudan. (Kate Holt/UNICEF via AP)

The United Nations children’s agency is warning that almost 1.4 million children are at “imminent risk of death” as famine threatens parts of South Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen.

The UNICEF announcement comes a day after famine was declared in parts of Unity state in South Sudan, where civil war has raged since late 2013 and where severe inflation has made food unaffordable for many.

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READ MORE: South Sudan government, UN declare famine due to prolonged civil war

UNICEF for months has warned about severe malnutrition in northeastern Nigeria, especially in areas that have been largely inaccessible because of the Boko Haram insurgency. The agency says nearly 500,000 children are expected to face severe malnutrition this year in Borno, Yobi and Adamawa states.

The agency says Somalia also faces drought and in Yemen’s conflict, nearly half a million children have “severe acute malnutrition.”

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