More than 1,200 people die of starvation in Nigeria refugee camp after fleeing Boko Haram

More than 1,200 people died of starvation in a Nigerian refugee camp after fleeing for safety from Boko Haram's vicious attacks.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), an international medical humanitarian organization providing free health care and support for displaced people in the camps, reported a "catastrophic humanitarian emergency" after seeing the situation on foot the town of Bama in northeastern Nigeria Tuesday, June 21.

The MSF team reported that the refugee camp in Bama is largely closed off where they found at least 1,233 graves of people who died from starvation, including children.

"According to the accounts given to MSF by displaced people in Bama, new graves are appearing on a daily basis," said MSF head of mission in Nigeria, Ghada Hatim. "We were told on certain days more than 30 people were dying due to hunger and illness."

Apart from the graves, the team also described a heath crisis in the area where 16 children were found to be at immediate risk of death due to severe malnutrition. Nineteen percent of the more than 800 children who went through a quick nutritional screening have been found suffering from severe acute malnutrition, which is the deadliest kind of malnutrition.

"This is the first time MSF has been able to access Bama, but we already know the needs of the people there are beyond critical," said Hatim. "We are treating malnourished children in medical facilities in Maiduguri and see the trauma on the faces of our patients who have witnessed and survived many horrors."

According to a report by the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) in April, Boko Haram increasingly involved children in suicide attacks. Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa, noted that it's become commonplace for communities to be suspicious of children. They also suffer from stigma and discrimination.

Bama is home to 24,000 internally displaced people who fled for refuge from the Islamist group that captured the town for six months before the Nigerian forces recaptured it in March last year. MSF listed 15,000 children living in the camp on a hospital compound with 4,500 of these under five years old.