Starving to death in Nigeria: Boko Haram is threatening the lives of thousands

The watermelons lay fat and green on Umar Bate’s farm, almost ready for harvest. He would need a tractor-trailer just to get his crop to market.

Musa Jabbi’s 400 cows wandered the plains, growing plump as they grazed. Abubakar Gamandi, a fisherman on Lake Chad, had smoked and stored a rich harvest of fish, ready to sell.

Then it all went wrong.

Northeastern Nigeria is now close to famine after nearly two years of brutal interference from Boko Haram, the Nigerian terrorist group that has systematically plundered and starved those who live here in a relentless scorched-earth campaign.

Nearly 50,000 children will die of starvation if they don’t get food soon and nearly 250,000 more are severely malnourished in Borno state, according to UNICEF. There are 4.4 million people affected by the crisis, half in areas inaccessible to humanitarian agencies.

Read More- LA Times

Image courtesy of AFP