UN says 1.4 million children at imminent risk of death in famines

GENEVA, (Reuters) - Nearly 1.4 million children are at “imminent risk” of death in famines in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen, the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said yesterday. People are already starving to death in all four countries, and the World Food Programme says more than 20 million lives are at risk in the next six months.

“Time is running out for more than a million children,” UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said in statement.

“We can still save many lives. The severe malnutrition and looming famine are largely man-made. Our common humanity demands faster action. We must not repeat the tragedy of the 2011 famine in the Horn of Africa.” Famine was formally declared on Monday in parts of South Sudan, which has been mired in civil war since 2013. The conflict has increasingly split the country along ethnic lines, leading the United Nations to warn of a potential genocide .