All skin and bones: AFP Correspondent photographs Nigerian starving children in Muna, Maiduguri

Photos of Nigerian starving children in Muna,
a suburb on the outskirts of Maiduguri where
the UN children’s agency UNICEF runs a
nutritional clinic, taken by Stefan Heunis, a
Freelance photographer based in Lagos.
Read below:
"It may be the rainy season, but the
savannah scrubland stretching out
below me is dusty, dry and brown,
linked by a spider’s web of dirt tracks
and footpaths.
I’m in a plane descending toward the
Maiduguri International Airport and
squint to focus on the hamlets dotted
across the landscape, It’s my third
visit here and once again I can’t see
many natural water bodies, which
gives me a familiar uncomfortable
feeling. How do people survive in this
harsh climate?” I wonder. I remind
myself to stay hydrated.
"Touch down in Maiduguri and the light is
blindingly bright. The air hits you in the face
like a hairdryer on its hottest setting. I’ve
come here to report on the latest calamity to
befall the capital of Borno state. Sitting on
the north banks of the seasonal Ngadda river
and historically a major commercial hub just
south of the Sahara, it was fought over for
centuries by traders, traditional and religious
leaders, then about a century ago the
colonialists.
Over the past several years, it had become
more notorious as the birthplace of Boko
Haram, the Islamist group whose insurgency
has devastated northeast Nigeria since 2009
and spilled across the border into Cameroon,
Chad and Niger.
AFP has covered the insurgency since it
began: the horrific and relentless attacks on
mosques, churches, markets and bus
stations, suicide bombings and raids on
remote villages. In the last 18 months the
Nigerian military, helped by its neighbors,
has reclaimed territory from the insurgents,
apparently weakening the radical group to
the point of "technical" defeat.
But this doesn't mean the people living here
are doing any better.
In recent weeks another shocking dimension
of the conflict has emerged: severe food
shortages have meant that hundreds of
people -- in particular children -- are suffering
from severe acute malnutrition. That’s a
fancy way of saying they’re starving.
Sometimes to death
The camps for internally displaced people
(IDPs) where the worst malnutrition cases
have been reported are not accessible
without military assistance, so we decide to
drive to an informal settlement in Muna, a
suburb on the outskirts of Maiduguri where
the UN children’s agency UNICEF runs a
nutritional clinic
Before going to a place like Muna, I always
try to figure out the best way to portray the
situation in the most honest way I can, while
still maintaining the humanity in the
subjects.
It is never easy to witness suffering and be
practically powerless to affect change, to do
anything about the people’s immediate
circumstances
t’s challenging because you need to retain
respect for your subjects, which in this case
entails focusing a lens on them and
capturing that moment in time. I believe part
of that respect comes with sensitivity
towards the different realities that you are
presented with.
My first impression of the Muna settlement is
of a dry dust bowl, a barren patch of land
devoid of grass and vegetation. The tents are
scattered in clusters over the naked earth
and the sun beats down on the ground....