United Nations, Dec 13 (UNI) In the coming year, severe acute malnutrition could claim the lives of more than 400,000 children under the age of five in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s volatile Kasai region, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned.

“This nutrition crisis and food insecurity in the Kasai region follows the displacement of thousands of families who have been living for months in very harsh conditions,” said Tajudeen Oyewale, the acting head of UNICEF in the African nation, in a news release on Tuesday underlining the scale of the catastrophe.

“The true scale of the problem is becoming clear as people are returning home in some areas where the security situation has improved and health services have started functioning again.”