Malnourished children and desperate mothers: the healthcare facility on the frontline of Nigeria’s hunger crisis

About 6.4 million Nigerian children are expected to be acutely malnourished by the end of the year, putting impossible pressure on scarce treatment centres Zuwaira Hanafi stood in shock as four doctors rushed past her to enter the ward where her eight-month-old daughter, Hambali, lay semiconscious. At the entrance to the healthcare facility in Kaita community in Nigeria’s northern Katsina state, medical personnel were using colour-coded tape to measure the diameter of children’s arms and dete...

By Eromo Egbejule in Kaita. Photography by Terna Iwar