Increasing malnutrition scare in the north

A number of provinces in northern Burundi have experienced a dramatic deterioration in malnutrition rates in recent months, and WFP has warned it may soon face difficulties coping with increasing needs, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Tuesday. UNICEF said admissions to nutritional centres had increased up to 68 percent countrywide since September, while the health NGO Medecins sans frontieres (MSF) has warned that malnutrition rates in supplementary feeding centres in Karuzi Province were five times higher than in normal years, the report said. Karuzi, Kayanza, Muyinga and Ngozi Provinces were particularly affected, it added. Consecutive poor harvests due to drought, coupled with a serious malaria epidemic, have worsened normal patterns of malnutrition in Burundi. WFP has distributed food rations to 15,000 people in the first half of January but says it may soon face difficulties with supplies, due to rapidly-emptying stocks and pipeline problems caused by recurrent rail problems between Burundi and Dar Es Salaam port in Tanzania, according to OCHA. The situation is further exacerbated by shortages of corn-soya blend (CSB) and oil. To make for the shortage of these products, UNICEF has requested 500 mt of the powdered food supplement Unimix, the first shipment of which is expected to arrive in Burundi on Monday 29 January, OCHA stated. Burundi is one of the most underfunded humanitarian emergencies globally, with UN agencies receiving only one quarter of the funding they requested last year, it added.