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	Nearly half a million children will face starvation in north-eastern Nigeria next year and 80,000 will die unless they receive treatment, amid the humanitarian crisis created by Boko Haram&#39;s Islamic uprising, the United Nations&#39; children&#39;s agency has warned.</p>
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	&quot;What is already a crisis can become a catastrophe,&quot; Unicef executive director Anthony Lake said.</p>
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	His statement said the 400,000 children at risk of starvation represented just a fraction of the suffering among some 2.6 million refugees in the seven-year uprising that has killed more than 20,000 people.</p>
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	&quot;If they do not receive the treatment they need, one in five of these children will die,&quot; Mr Lake said.</p>
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	&quot;Large areas of Borno state are completely inaccessible to any kind of humanitarian assistance. We are extremely concerned about the children trapped in these areas.&quot;</p>
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	Boko Haram attacked a military-escorted humanitarian convoy in July about 45 miles from Maiduguri, the birthplace of the insurgency, wounding a Unicef worker, two other aid workers and two soldiers.</p>
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	A rocket-propelled grenade slammed into the windscreen of a bullet-proof vehicle, one that Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari has accused the agency of buying instead of spending money on people in need. Unicef said the vehicle was a donation.</p>
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	Mr Lake spoke just days after Mr Buhari accused the UN and private international aid agencies of exaggerating the crisis to seek donations. Mr Buhari declared that Boko Haram was &quot;technically defeated&quot; a year ago and appeared to be fixed on maintaining that fiction.</p>
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	While soldiers from a multinational force of Nigeria and neighbouring countries have pushed the extremists out of towns and many villages they occupied, attacks on military outposts and suicide bombings of soft targets continue.</p>
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	The Associated Press news agency has reported since September that children already are dying of starvation in Maiduguri, the biggest city in Nigeria&#39;s north east that is easily accessible.</p>
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	Doctors Without Borders said in November that thousands of children already have died, including 10 to 25% of children admitted to its 110-bed Maiduguri emergency treatment centre.</p>
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	Nigeria&#39;s senate is investigating allegations that government agencies are diverting food aid that could help prevent those deaths.</p>
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	Mr Buhari was elected in March 2015 on a platform that pledged to finish off Boko Haram and halt endemic corruption.</p>
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	(Published by the Irish Independent on the 14th December 2016)</p>
<p>
	<a href="http://www.independent.ie/world-news/un-80000-nigerian-children-will-starve-to-death-35293184.html">http://www.independent.ie/world-news/un-80000-nigerian-children-will-starve-to-death-35293184.html</a></p>
