Nearly half a million children will face starvation in north-eastern Nigeria next year and 80,000 will die unless they receive treatment, amid the humanitarian crisis created by Boko Haram's Islamic uprising, the United Nations' children's agency has warned.

Good afternoon. Here’s all the news you need to know this lunchtime.

Here’s a briefing on some of the stories and issues highlighted on irishexaminer.com today.

Boko Haram has murdered 600 teachers and displaced 19,000 in an effort to stop children getting the education they need to break the cycle of poverty, writes AnneMarie McCarthy       

Three child suicide bombers have set off explosions in north-eastern Nigeria that killed six other people and left another 24 injured.

Suicide bombs have killed at least 64 people in multiple blasts in north-eastern Nigeria, according to officials.

Nigeria’s Boko Haram extremists are offering to free more than 200 young women and girls kidnapped from a boarding school in the town of Chibok in exchange for the release of militant leaders held by the government, a human rights activist said.

Athlone is mourning a couple killed by terrorist in Tunisia, a swab ’the size of a mini football’ was left inside a woman at a Dublin hospital, a weekend of sporting finals awaits and Conor McGregor plays to the crowd on American TV. Here’s this evening’s irishexaminer.com catch-up.

The Nigerian extremist group Boko Haram has crossed into neighbouring Niger and attacked two villages, killing 40 people.

The UN children’s agency has reported an “alarming spike” in suicide bombings by girls and women used by Boko Haram in north-eastern Nigeria.

The Nigerian army said it could not confirm if any of the 300 women and girls freed from a Boko Haram stronghold are the schoolgirls kidnapped a year ago.

The UN’s human rights chief has said his office has received reports that Boko Haram fighters retreating from advancing military forces in Nigeria murdered women and girls they had taken as “wives”, along with other captives.

A car bomb has exploded at a polling station in Nigeria’s south-central Enugu state as people gathered to vote in a presidential election.

Ireland is today dispatching thousands of blankets, tents, cooking kits, and other urgent supplies to assist thousands of Nigerian refugees in Northern Cameroon.

Islamic State militants have accepted a pledge of allegiance by the Nigerian-grown Boko Haram extremist group, a spokesman for IS has said.

A girl suicide bomber blew herself up in a busy market in north-eastern Nigeria, killing four other people and seriously injury 46, witnesses said.

A teenage female suicide bomber killed 16 people and injured more than 30 others when she blew herself up at crowded bus station in in north-eastern Nigeria.

The wife of Cameroon’s vice prime minister was kidnapped and at least three people were killed in an attack by Boko Haram militants in the northern town of Kolofata yesterday, Cameroon officials said.

Boko Haram militants dressed as soldiers slaughtered at least 200 civilians in three villages in north-eastern Nigeria and the military failed to intervene even though it was warned that an attack was imminent, witnesses said.

It is understood the search for 276 schoolgirls kidnapped in Nigeria is closing in on a forest near the eastern border.

Nigerian security officials failed to act on a warning about a militant group’s raid on a boarding school that led to the abduction of more than 300 girls, Amnesty International says.

Attackers in north-eastern Nigeria have killed three South Korean doctors, beheading one in the assault, according to officials.

Fifteen people have been killed by lightning in north-eastern Nigeria after strong thunderstorms swept through the rural region.

Britain circulated a draft UN Security Council resolution yesterday that would move the war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor from Sierra Leone to the Netherlands because of the danger he would pose by remaining in the West Africa region.

Thousands of Nigerian Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad attacked Christians and burned churches in north-eastern Nigeria, killing at least 15 people, police and residents said.