UN: Hunger Crisis Hits Northern Mali Amid Insecurity, Violence

Violence against aid groups and general insecurity have plunged the Timbuktu region in northern Mali into hunger crisis, with tens of thousands of children at increasing risk of dying from malnutrition. 

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs [UNOCHA] said  about one in six people in the region are suffering from acute malnutrition. 

This includes more than 50 thousand children under the age of five who, because they are malnourished, are up to nine times more likely to die.

VOA