Emergency supplies of ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) are expected to be exhausted in Nigeria, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan due to international aid reductions. RUTF is a long‑shelf‑life nutritional paste that does not require refrigeration and is critical for treating severe acute malnutrition. Without access to treatment and nutrition support, millions of children under five face life-threatening risk, with 3.5 million Nigerian children especially vulnerable. Deep cuts to UN humanitarian programmes and major donor scaling back—notably by the United States—have forced prioritization of limited resources and threaten food, healthcare and poverty‑reduction efforts.
Millions of children across four African countries could die of malnutrition in the next three months, Save the Children has warned, as emergency food supplies dwindle as a result of international aid cuts. Save the Children said on Thursday that Nigeria, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan were expected to run out of so-called ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF), a nutritional paste that has a long shelf life and does not need refrigeration.
Imagine being a parent with a severely malnourished child, Yvonne Arunga, Save the Children's regional director for East and Southern Africa, said in a statement. Now imagine that the only thing that could help your child bounce back from the brink of death is therapeutic food and that food is out of stock when it was once available.
We have been forced into a triage of human survival, UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said at the time. The math is cruel, and the consequences are heartbreaking. Too many people will not get the support they need, but we will save as many lives as we can with the resources we are given.
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