Nearly 200 die in a month at Boko Haram displaced camp

Nearly 200 people have died in the last month at a camp for people made homeless by Boko Haram violence in northeast Nigeria, an aid agency said on Wednesday, warning of a growing malnutrition crisis.

A Doctors Without Borders (MSF) team on Tuesday visited the camp, home to around 24 000 people including 15 000 children, and found what it called "a catastrophic humanitarian emergency" unfolding.

One in five of over 800 children it examined had severe acute malnutrition while 16 severely malnourished children "at immediate risk of death" were referred to its in-patient treatment centre.

At least 188 people have died in the internally displaced people (IDP) camp in Bama, some 70km from Maiduguri, since May 23 – about six a day – mainly from diarrhoea and malnutrition, MSF said in a statement.