Media Home
UN Web TV
UN Audiovisual Library
UN PhotoNIGERIA / MALNUTRITION BORNO STATE
Download
There is no media available to download.
Share
STORY: NIGERIA / MALNUTRITION BORNO STATE
TRT: 02:46
SOURCE: UNICEF
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / KANURI / NATS
DATELINE: 15 NOVEMBER 2016, BANKI, BORNO STATE, NORTHEAST NIGERIA
1. Aerial shot, destroyed school compound and other building
2. Aerial shot, landing
3. Tracking shot, buildings destroyed during the conflict with Boko Haram
4. Wide shot, children walk down street
5. Med shot, woman walks down street
6. Wide shot, woman walks out of entrance to a "Widow's House"
7. Pan left, women and children sit in compound of "Widow's House"
8. Wide shot, women pounding maize in another compound of the "Widow's House"
9. Med shot, women pounding maize in another compound of the "Widow's House"
10. Close up, maize being pounded in wooden bucket
11. Wide shot, through doorway, we see 18-year-old Yagana washing clothes in a compound of the "Widow's House"
12. Med shot, 18-year-old Yagana washing clothes in a compound of the "Widow's House", her one-and-half-year-old daughter Falti sleeps behind her
13. Med shot, Yagana washing clothes
14. SOUNDBITE (Kanuri) Yagana, 18-year-old Banki Resident:
"As we were fleeing, Boko Haram stopped us. They beat my husband and took him away."
15. Tilt down, from Yagana's face to her washing
16. SOUNDBITE (Kanuri) Yagana, 18-year-old Banki Resident:
"I keep dreaming about my husband. Life is difficult without him; I can't get him out of my mind."
17. Tracking shot, tents and residents within the IDP camp
18. Wide shot, tents and residents within the IDP camp
19. Med shot, children standing outside tent at IDP camp
20. Med shot, UNICEF Nutrition Specialist, Andrew Sammy attends to mothers and babies inside a UNICEF-supported health clinic within the IDP camp
21. Med shot, UNICEF Nutrition Specialist, Andrew Sammy attends to a mother with a severely malnourished baby
22. Close up, UNICEF Nutrition Specialist, Andrew Sammy measure the baby's mid-Upper Arm circumference (reading is 9.5CM)
23. Med shot, UNICEF Nutrition Specialist, Andrew Sammy measure the baby's mid-Upper Arm circumference (reading is 9.5CM)
24. Pan left, from mother of malnourished child to other mothers and children waiting to be seen in health clinic
25. SOUNDBITE (English) Abdul Kadir Musse, UNICEF Senior Emergency Coordinator:
"At the moment, the critical urgent gap we see in all the IDP camps is the availability of food. People could not cultivate in the last two years; still they do not have access to their cultivation areas and there is no, all livelihoods are being lost."
26. Wide shot, outside a UNICEF-supported health clinic within the IDP camp
27. Tilt down, UNICEF health worker passes baby to a mother, who is standing on weighing scales.
28. Close up, weight of baby on weighing scales
29. Close up, baby being held by mother, over her mother's shoulder
As security gradually improves across the Borno region in Nigeria, humanitarian agencies are accessing areas which have been too dangerous to get to before. In each new place hundreds of thousands of people in need of urgent help are discovered and identified.
Less than 3 kilometres from the Cameroon border is the Nigerian town of Banki, in Borno State.
The town's main street, once a thriving commercial area with cross-border trade, is now deserted and lined with buildings which have been destroyed during the conflict.
Boko Haram captured Banki in September 2014. The small town's position on the border made it an ideal strategic location, as they attempted to secure territory beyond northeast Nigeria.
The Nigeria military, with help from their Cameroon counterparts, reassumed control of the town a year later, in September 2015. A tentative security is holding.
Former residents and IDPs from surrounding villages have now sought refuge in Banki.
With the constant arrival of people, it's difficult to accurately determine how many people live here. But aid agencies estimate that there's at least 20,000 IDPs now living in Banki - and the true figure could be more than double that.
In Banki, IDPs aren't living in tents. Families have sought shelter in the town's semi-destroyed buildings. Most don't have roofs; walls still bear the scars of the battle.
In some houses, groups of widowed women are pooling resources. The so-called 'Widows' Houses' are home to women who've become separated from their husbands during the conflict, or whose husbands have been kidnapped or killed by Boko Haram. Many feel safer living together, along with their children. As they wait to see if their husbands will return, the women make do as best they can. Some try and earn a small income through dress-making; others get on with daily chores - like pounding maize for meals or chopping firewood for use in cooking.
In one 'Widows' House' we meet 18-year old Yagana (names have been changed). She used to live in a small village outside Banki with her husband and new baby, Falti. The family decided to flee over the border to Cameroon because of the ongoing fighting. But whilst they were trying to get there, they were ambushed by Boko Haram.
"As we were fleeing, Boko Haram stopped us," she says, "They beat my husband and took him away." Yagana later found out, through friends, that Boko Haram shot and killed her husband.
When Banki was liberated, Yagana decided to come back to Nigeria but she's haunted by memories. "I keep dreaming about my husband," she explains, "Life is difficult without him, I can't get him out of my mind." For now, the future for Yagana and her baby is uncertain, but at least they have found some security here in Banki. "I used to feel scared all the time. But at least now, I feel safe."
The ongoing conflict between Boko Haram and the Nigerian military has resulted in 7 million individuals across the northeast, in desperate need of assistance. Approximately 55 percent are children.
In Borno state alone, there are more than a million displaced people. The majority lives in host communities but around a quarter of a million people live in camps, like the Government Girls Camp in Monguno, Borno State.
In a UNICEF health clinic in the camp, UNICEF Nutrition Specialist Andrew Sammy is screening children for signs of malnourishment.
Today, one mother has brought in her little girl. Staff carefully measure the circumference of her fragile arm - it's just 9.5 centimetres, well below the healthy 12.5 centimetres. Her prominent bones, and discoloured hair, are further indicators of severe acute malnourishment. She's in urgent need of medical care and will be given food supplements to help her put on weight.
Sadly, this baby is one of thousands of children in urgent need of life-saving medical help. UN's Office of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) estimates that 75,000 children in northeast Nigeria are at risk of dying of hunger "in the few months ahead".
"At the moment, the critical urgent gap we see in all the IDP camps is the availability of food," explains UNICEF's Senior Emergency Coordinator Abdul Kadir Musse. "People could not cultivate in the last two years; still they do not have access to their cultivation areas and there is no, all livelihoods are being lost! That’s why we see high rates of malnutrition."
In Nigeria alone, UNICEF in collaboration with the government and partners has provided primary health care services to more than 3 million people with hundreds of thousands of children receiving psycho-social support, therapeutic feeding, access to safe water and education.
