MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Northern Nigeria faces a hunger crisis. Analysts say at least 5 million children already suffer from acute malnutrition. Now dozens of humanitarian aid programs in the region, including the U.N.'s World Food Programme, will be forced to shut down after the Trump administration dismantled USAID. NPR's Jewel Bright reports.
JEWEL BRIGHT, BYLINE: Until this year, American nonprofit Helen Keller Intl ran malnutrition treatment operations in almost 80 health centers across the region. But today, only one of those programs remains open. It's housed here in the Tashar Maje Health Center in Bauchi, northeast Nigeria. Since treatment stopped in other health centers, mothers and their malnourished babies have been arriving here in large numbers.
BELLO AYUBA: So here we have seen an increase, higher increase.
BRIGHT: Bello Ayuba is a nutritionist here. He says they are overwhelmed.
AYUBA: As you can see, there are so many people there outside. Almost every day, every single day, you will see patients from - even from neighboring states are coming here.
BRIGHT: But only a fraction are able to receive lifesaving treatment because of a shortage of therapeutic food.
AYUBA: We are only able to admit 100 patients.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABIES CRYING)
BRIGHT: On the hospital grounds, we meet 23-year-old Hadiza Adamu. She's cradling her 6-month-old daughter, Amina. The baby is frail, her stomach swollen, and her bones are bulging from her skin. She's barely able to cry.
HADIZA ADAMU: (Non-English language spoken).
BRIGHT: Adamu says she visited other centers before coming here, but they had run out of the treatment her child desperately needs. She says this center is her daughter's only hope.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABIES CRYING)
BRIGHT: The alarming rate of hunger and malnutrition in this region is driven by constant attacks by Boko Haram insurgents and other armed groups. For decades, farmers produced enough food to survive, but everything changed in 2014. That's when Islamist militants upended life in northeast Nigeria. Militants now control large swaths of territory, including vast farmlands that people here depend on for food.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR DRIVING)
BRIGHT: Along the dry, dusty roads of Bauchi, we travel to the Yelwan Makaranta village. There was a malnutrition program here run by Helen Keller and supported by USAID. But it, too, ran out of therapeutic food after the Trump administration's cuts. The one remaining treatment center is over 60 miles away, and many who desperately need treatment are unable to reach it. That includes Aishatu Musa. She's 35.
AISHATU MUSA: (Non-English language spoken).
BRIGHT: She says her husband died a few months before her twin boys were born. With the family's breadwinner gone, she couldn't afford enough food, and this caused her to produce little breast milk for her babies. She tried to supplement with local grains she blended into a paste, but it didn't help the boys. In April, doctors at the local health center diagnosed her twins with severe acute malnutrition. But they couldn't treat the boys because all supplies of the ready-to-eat therapeutic food packets had run out. In May, Aishatu says one of her babies died.
MUSA: (Non-English language spoken).
BRIGHT: And the condition of her other son has gotten worse. Aliyu Mohammed is Helen Keller's country director in Nigeria.
ALIYU MOHAMMED: The crisis of funding had never reached this peak. This is the worst I've seen in my entire public health experience.
BRIGHT: For some nutrition experts, the cuts to foreign aid shows it's time for Nigeria to look within and not to Washington or elsewhere.
ABDULRAUF WAZIRI: There's overdependence on donor funding.
BRIGHT: Dr. Waziri Abdulrauf (ph) is a nutrition expert who has worked in the region for years.
WAZIRI: I can assure you 100% of nutrition services is being provided by NGOs.
BRIGHT: The director of nutrition at Nigeria's Health Ministry told NPR that the government launched a nationwide malnutrition program in February and is currently procuring therapeutic food for distribution. But Waziri says the government's response has been slow and inadequate, given the scale of the crisis. In the meantime, more malnutrition programs that have also lost U.S. funding are poised to close as this region braces for the crisis to worsen. Jewel Bright, NPR News, Lagos. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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