MSF Facilities in Northern Nigeria witnessed an unusual premature spike in malnutrition between April and May 2024. Both inpatient and outpatient facilities were quickly overwhelmed. In Maiduguri, the team at the Inpatient Therapeutic Feeding Centre (ITFC) in Nilefa Keji Hospital was forced to lay out matrasses between overflow tents to accommodate the number of patients. In May 2024 the facility admitted 2,092 cases. This has doubled from the same period last year. The reasons behind the high levels of malnutrition are numerous - lack of preventative malnutrition diagnostic and care, low vaccine coverage, violence and reduced access to the fields - but were aggravated in 2024 by economic factors such as the massive inflation and the abolition of fuel subsidy. Many staple crops have become unaffordable. Additionally, recession in donor countries and the diversion of funds to other humanitarian crisis such as Gaza, Ukraine or Sudan has seen reduction in humanitarian and development aid to Nigeria. As a result, A- and ITFC’s run by the ministry of health have not been able to run at full capacity or the wider distribution of Ready to Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTF) has been interrupted.

These screengrabs were taken at the MSF Nilefa Keji facility in Maiduguri, Northeast Nigeria. They depict daily life inside the various wards in the hospital and focus heavily on three mothers in the same ward with twins.