Misrepresenting statistical data can dramatically alter its meaning and public understanding. On March 31, 2026, during an audio recording titled “Ten Years Without an Assessment, Part 4,” disseminated by the online platform Be Africa, exiled Beninese opposition figure Martin Rodriguez asserted that in Benin, “more than 45% of children under 5 years old die from malnutrition.”
To substantiate his claim, Rodriguez stated that his statistics originated from the United Nations. He encouraged listeners to conduct their own online searches: “I read a United Nations report, two reports. There’s one on child mortality. It’s on the internet, everyone listening, type it on your phone, go to Google,” he urged before presenting his purported child mortality rate linked to malnutrition.
Context of the Controversial Claim
The release of Be Africa’s publication, “Ten Years Without an Assessment, Part 4,” coincided with the intense electoral campaign leading up to the presidential election on April 12, 2026. Within the discussions broadcast on Be Africa’s channels, Martin Rodriguez, a businessman and vocal Beninese opposition leader living in exile, delivered a scathing critique of Patrice Talon’s government over the past decade in Benin. “We have experienced a surge in poverty; poverty has increased,” he declared, prior to introducing his statistic on child mortality in Benin.
These allegations were extracted from a comprehensive debate published two days earlier on Be Africa’s YouTube channel, before their subsequent appearance on Facebook.
Despite the attribution to the United Nations, the assertion that “more than 45% of children under 5 years old die from malnutrition” in Benin is factually incorrect.
Online Research Reveals Discrepancies
Following Martin Rodriguez’s suggestion, Badona initiated an initial Google search using keywords such as “malnutrition, mortality, children, 5 years, Benin.” A subsequent search was conducted using Rodriguez’s exact claim: “more than 45% of children under 5 years old die from malnutrition.”
Both searches led to an advocacy brief published on the UNICEF-Benin website, titled “Malnutrition: A Risk Factor for Mortality and Morbidity in Children.”
The statistics presented in this publication, dated April 30, 2020, significantly differ from those advanced by the Beninese opposition figure. The document explicitly states that “Malnutrition is the greatest risk factor for mortality and morbidity among young children in Benin” and that “it accounts for 45 percent of all child deaths annually among children under 5.”
This UNICEF statistic was also referenced in an article by the specialized health website Allo Docteurs, published on November 18, 2024, and updated on June 25, 2025. This media outlet reported that “chronic malnutrition is responsible for 45% of deaths among children under 5 each year.”
UNICEF Benin Clarifies and Refutes Rodriguez’s Statement
In the course of our verification process, Badona contacted the Beninese representation of UNICEF. In an email response received on Tuesday, March 31, 2026, UNICEF Benin unequivocally rejected the data attributed to it by Martin Rodriguez.
Regarding the claim: “More than 45% of children under 5 years old die from malnutrition” in Benin, Dorothée Thiénot, UNICEF-Benin’s Head of Communication, promptly refuted it, stating, “Phrased this way, this sentence is false and does not correspond to how the United Nations, including UNICEF, presents data.”
Beyond the fact that the statement does not align with the reality of UN statistics on Benin, Dorothée Thiénot highlighted a crucial nuance: “We speak of the proportion of deaths among children under 5 where malnutrition is an underlying or aggravating factor, and not the proportion of all children who die from malnutrition.”
Badona also questioned Dorothée Thiénot about the 2020 UNICEF Benin advocacy brief, which indicated that “malnutrition is the greatest risk factor for mortality and morbidity among young children in Benin” and that “it accounts for 45 percent of all child deaths annually among children under 5.”
On this point, Thiénot explained, “This phrasing was based on estimations available at the time, largely aligned with international analyses that attribute approximately 45% of deaths among children under 5 globally to undernutrition.”
In any case, the Head of Communication for UNICEF Benin emphasized, “It is not correct to say that ‘45% of children die’ due to malnutrition before the age of 5 in Benin. This is an erroneous interpretation,” Dorothée Thiénot firmly stated.
Regarding the current reality of infant mortality in Benin, Thiénot informed us that “the available data are not presented in the form of a ‘mortality rate specific to malnutrition’ for Benin, but rather as: an under-5 mortality rate (number of deaths per 1,000 live births).”
