Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) says nearly 200 refugees have starved to death in the span of a month at Bama refugee camp in Nigeria – a development it describes as a “catastrophic humanitarian emergency” according to the BBC.
Nigerian troops recaptured the town of Bama in March 2015 a year after Boko Haram seized it. The militant terror group deployed suicide bombers and launched cross-border attacks from Chad, Niger, and Cameroon, killing over 20,000 civilians including women and children.
Now, a disturbing report from MSF reveals a spate of new mass graves appearing on a daily basis, with 480 children among the deceased. So far, Nigerian authorities and a local NGO have facilitated the evacuation of nearly 1,200 people requiring medical care from the Bama area to Maiduguri, capital city of Borno State. Of the children who were evacuated, 66 percent were emaciated while another 39 percent suffered from a severe form of malnutrition.
“We see the trauma on the faces of our patients who have witnessed and survived many horrors,” explained Ghada Hatim, head of the Doctors Without Borders mission in Nigeria.
MSF estimates that these troubling developments have forced more than 24,000 refugees to live in traumatic situations, joining 1.8 million of their fellow Nigerians who have been affected by Boko Haram’s terror attacks.
