U.N. says 1.4 million children at imminent risk of death in famines

A mother feeds her child with a peanut-based paste for treatment of severe acute malnutrition in a UNICEF supported hospital in the capital Juba, South Sudan, January 25, 2017. REUTERS/Siegfried Modola

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 on Tuesday.

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.