Apr 4 2012
UNICEF on Tuesday launched a social media campaign "to raise awareness about children in the Sahel region in northern Africa who are in urgent need of food aid," CNN reports. UNICEF estimates that one million children in the region are at risk of starvation, and the U.N. says more than 10 million people risk severe acute malnutrition, the news agency notes. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, "the main causes of the humanitarian crisis in the region are 'drought, chronic poverty, high food prices, displacement and conflict,'" CNN writes. The campaign also aims to raise funds for the crisis, as UNICEF reports having only $30 million of a $120 million appeal in its coffers, according to the news agency (4/3).
This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente. |