Hunger grips Burkina Faso

Martine Roamba’s 10-month-old daughter weakly tugs at her mother’s breast searching for milk.

The malnourished baby has been struggling to feed since birth as her mother hasn’t had enough to eat to produce sufficient breastmilk since fleeing her village in northern Burkina Faso last year when jihadis started killing people.

Seated on a hospital bed with other severely malnourished children and their parents on the outskirts of Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, 30-year-old Roamba tries to calm her crying daughter.

“It’s very worrying and we’re praying to God that the baby doesn’t deteriorate into an even worse situation,” she said.

Hunger is soaring across conflict-ridden Burkina Faso, a result of increasing violence linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, which has killed thousands and displaced millions, preventing people from farming. Some 3.5 million people are food insecure, with nearly 630,000 expected to be on the brink of starvation, according to the latest food security report by the government and U.N. agencies. This is an 82% increase from last year of people facing emergency hunger.