LAGOS, Nigeria (AFP) — More than 600 malnourished children have died in northern Nigeria in six months after failing to receive proper care as foreign aid dries up, a medical charity has said.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said northern Nigeria, which already is struggling with insurgency and banditry, is “currently facing an alarming malnutrition crisis.”

In the first half of 2025, its teams treated nearly 70,000 children for malnutrition in Katsina state, nearly 10,000 of whom had to be hospitalised.

During the same period, cases of nutritional oedema — the most severe and deadly form of malnutrition among children — jumped by 208 percent from the same period in 2024.

“Unfortunately, 652 children have already died in our facilities since the beginning of 2025 due to a lack of timely access to care,” the charity, which is known by its French initials, said in a statement released Friday.

Huge cuts in foreign aid sparked by US President Donald Trump’s decision to slash spending overseas have combined with spiking living costs and a surge in jihadist attacks to create a dire situation in northern Nigeria.

Ahmed Aldikhari, MSF’s country representative in Nigeria, said the cuts from the United States — but also from Britain and European Union — were hampering treatment and care for malnourished children.

He said “the true scale of the crisis exceeds all predictions”.

An MSF survey of 750 mothers showed more than half of them were “acutely malnourished, including 13 percent with severe acute malnutrition”.

Katsina state nutrition officer Abdulhadi Abdulkadir, acknowledged the severity of malnutrition in the state, but said the numbers released by the medical charity might be “too high compared to reality” and had not been validated by his administration.

– ‘Serious cases of malnutrition‘ –
“Yes, definitely there are deaths as a result of malnutrition,” he told AFP, promising to provide official figures next week.

The MSF figures cover the entire north of the country which includes more than a dozen states.

Abdulkadir said the northern parts of his state, bordering Niger and straddling the semi desert Sahel region, have the most severe malnutrition because food production is limited by the harsh climate.

Food production in the fertile south of the state is being hampered by criminal gangs called bandits who raid villages, making farming dangerous, he said.

“This has aggravated the issue of malnutrition,” he said.

Criminal gangs have spread throughout the country, targeting rural areas with kidnappings for ransom.

Katsina state government provided 500 million naira ($330, 000) towards nutrition programmes last and has doubled the amount this year, said Abdulkadir, the government official.

Across the country of roughly 230 million people, a record nearly 31 million face acute hunger, according to David Stevenson, chief of the UN’s food agency in Nigeria.

The World Food Programme warned earlier this week it would be forced to suspend all emergency food and nutrition aid for 1.3 million people in northeast Nigeria at the end of July because of critical funding shortfalls.