The United Nations Children’s Fund on Monday said Nigeria has beaten the war-torn Sudan to emerge as the capital of malnourished children on the African continent and the second highest in the world.

The UNICEF chief nutrition section, Nemat Hajeebhoy, who disclosed this during a media briefing on the 2025 lean season multisectoral response organised by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said 600,000 children in the country suffer from acute malnutrition.

“Nigeria has the highest number of malnourished children in Africa and the second in the world,” Ms Hajeebhoy said.

She noted that half of these children are on the brink of developing severe acute malnutrition, making them vulnerable to death.

Serigne Loum, a World Food Programme official, also mentioned that Nigeria had the most food-insecure people in Africa.

This damning revelation came amid OCHA’s appeal for funding to tackle the recurrent food and nutrition crisis in the North-East states. 

Trond Jensen, OCHA head of office, said the UN agency required a combined $300 million to adequately address the crisis, noting that $160 million of the fund is necessary to tackle crises related to food insecurity, nutrition, water, and sanitation.

Mr Jensen said, “This is the absolute bare minimum that we are needing. Of course it’s a paradox and a dilemma that we are facing that whereas the need when it comes to severe acute malnutrition has doubled in the year, our ability to address those needs in some instances has halved.”

Mr Jensen, while appealing to state governments and international organisations to contribute to the response, said the agency was targeting two million people as far as the crises were concerned.

Last year, the Global Hunger Index listed Sudan as the country most hit by poverty, followed by Burundi, Somalia and Yemen.

Meanwhile, the World Bank’s Africa’s Pulse report of April 2025 showed that Nigeria accounts for 19 per cent of extremely poor people in Sub-Saharan Africa, while the Democratic Republic of Congo has 14 per cent, Ethiopia nine per cent, and Sudan six per cent.

The World Bank also predicted a grim future for Nigeria, stating that more Nigerians will be plunged into poverty by 2027.