The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has raised alarm that unless urgent interventions are made, as many as 420,000 Nigerian children battling severe acute malnutrition could die this year out of the 3.5 million currently affected nationwide.
UNICEF’s Nigeria Country Representative, Wafaa Elfadil Saeed Abdelatef, issued the warning on Thursday during her visit to the organisation’s Maiduguri Field Office.
“Nigeria has 15 million malnourished children under five, and 3.5 million at risk of severe acute malnutrition. Of the 3.5 million at risk of severe acute malnutrition, 420,000 children could die in 2025 alone if nothing changes.
“Forty percent of under-fives are stunted—children who will never reach their full physical or cognitive potential if we do not act now,” she said.
Abdelatef warned that without swift mobilization of resources, Nigeria could lose hundreds of thousands of children to hunger, preventable illnesses, and inadequate care.
She emphasized that UNICEF is in urgent need of additional funding, increased production of local food solutions, and more treatment centres to prevent children from dying of malnutrition-related causes.
Highlighting the situation in the Northeast, she noted that the region remains severely affected by a humanitarian crisis, with more than 4.5 million people requiring urgent assistance.
Abdelatef also drew attention to Nigeria’s deepening education crisis, revealing that 18.3 million children are out of school—10.2 million at the primary level and 8.1 million at junior secondary level.
“That is nearly one in three Nigerian children. Every year, around 3.9 million fail to finish primary school, and 4.2 million fail to finish junior secondary school.
“Only 27% of children aged 7 to 14 can read with comprehension, and 75% cannot solve simple mathematics. The education crisis is both about access and quality.
“As I observed during this visit, we must support children to enroll in school and complete their studies. School enrollment and retention help delay early marriage and empower girls to make informed decisions about their health and future families,” she said.
Speaking on immunization and child survival, Abdelatef disclosed that Nigeria currently has more than 2.1 million children who have never received any vaccine, the highest number recorded globally.
She explained that nearly one out of every three children under the age of one has not been vaccinated at all, leaving them highly vulnerable to preventable but deadly diseases like measles, diphtheria, meningitis, and circulating strains of poliovirus.
