70 Eastern Cape children died of hunger in seven months this year

The deaths of 70 Eastern Cape children from the start of the year to July have been linked to severe acute malnutrition.

On Friday, premier Oscar Mabuyane is expected to appear before the SA Human Rights Commission after being subpoenaed to detail the progress his office has made in addressing the issue..

Almost three years ago, a report was released by the human rights watchdog detailing steps various government departments should take to address malnutrition.

After the report, titled Right to Food and Child Malnutrition, was tabled in parliament in 2023, the recommendations for the office of the premier included that the premier consider declaring a state of disaster due to the high prevalence of child malnutrition in the Eastern Cape so that immediate interventions could be introduced.

The report also recommended establishing a dedicated war room, accountable to the premier’s office, with decentralised district command centres involving state agencies, including the departments of home affairs, health, basic education, SA Social Security Agency and social development, to co-ordinate efforts to address child malnutrition, including data analysis and predictive modelling.

Between April 2021 and March 2022, a total of 1,087 children in the Eastern Cape presented with severe acute malnutrition.

The commission also subpoenaed the national directors-general and provincial heads of departments of social development, treasury, basic education and health.

The commission said despite the report’s clear recommendations, implementation had been “slow, fragmented and inadequate”.

On Thursday, during a health department presentation, it was revealed that 70 children had died due to reasons associated with severe acute malnutrition since the start of 2025.

This accounted only for deaths in public health facilities, with department officials indicating the number could be higher.

In 2024, the province lost 107 children to malnutrition, the third highest in the country after KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo.

Nelson Mandela Bay led with 29 deaths, followed by the Alfred Nzo and Amathole districts with 18 each. 

Health director-general Dr Sandile Buthelezi said child deaths linked to malnutrition in SA were deeply rooted in socioeconomic inequalities that persisted across communities, particularly in rural and township areas.

“Many households face chronic food insecurity, lacking regular access to safe, sufficient and nutritious meals. This is compounded by high poverty and unemployment rates.

“Children in low-income households are more likely to be stunted, underweight, or overweight due to disrupted eating patterns and poor dietary diversity.”

Buthelezi said the country’s current economic situation, with poor economic growth, job losses and reduced household income, intensified these challenges, forcing families to choose between nutritious food and other essential expenses such as rent or electricity.

The socioeconomic factors, combined with inadequate childcare support and limited multisectoral co-ordination, contributed significantly to high rates of malnutrition-related child mortality in the country.

In 2025, the Alfred Nzo district leads with 17 deaths, followed by the OR Tambo district with 14 and Amathole district with 12 deaths.

Buffalo City Metro recorded seven deaths. Only the Joe Gqabi district municipality did not record a death.

Buthelezi said the numbers were underreported.

Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the proceedings, provincial health head of department Dr Rolene Wagner said: “We want to identify children before they become at risk of severe acute malnutrition.

“We have invested in community-based outreach teams, and we have increased the number of community development workers to about 4,050 this year, who go out in communities and find children who could be at risk.

“We also work with NPOs to assist us in reaching rural households. Once we find the cases, we link them to care.

“We find children who present to our facilities do so too late. It’s really important to educate the communities and mothers.”

Among its interventions, social development’s Xola Ntshona said the department, working in partnership with health, education, Sassa, home affairs and the national development agency, had since 2023 been implementing a mother-child development and support programme.

The programme is one of the interventions presented to the commission before the department was subpoenaed, which the commission found to be “not enough”.

“What we have since done as part of this plan is to incorporate the department of agriculture, and we then developed a rapid response plan for the Eastern Cape which basically sought to ensure that it’s not business as usual,” Ntshona said.

“Resources that were spread across the province had to be targeted to hotspots as guided by administrative data we were getting from the department of health ...

“Part of the interventions of the rapid response plan was to acknowledge that we are not doing enough in promoting communities and households to produce their own vegetables.

“And so there’s a commitment in that plan to ensure that we promote school gardening interventions, ensuring that the department of education’s school feeding scheme also benefits from those school gardens, as well as communities and households near facilities.”

It was also revealed that  the province had nearly two-million beneficiaries of social grants, with more than R1bn paid monthly. 

Moses Ndlovu, from the national basic education office, said: “Despite the challenges we’re facing, we’ve seen incremental funding from the National Treasury when it comes to the National School Nutrition Programme as we progressed from just feeding learners cold meals to providing warm meals.

“This ensures that there is quality in terms of providing the necessary nutrients needed by the learners.”

SAHRC commissioner Philile Ntuli said it was not enough to talk the talk; the departments needed to up the ante in addressing malnutrition. 

“Despite clear recommendations, implementation has been inadequate. In some instances, there was no response at all.

“That constitutes rights violations. The purpose of this sitting is not symbolic, but to demand clear answers and time frames.

“Since the release [of the report] ... children are still dying of hunger. It’s a profound indictment.

“The Eastern Cape stands as a shameful symbol of a national disaster. We expect commitment.”

Daily Dispatch