300 000 kids could starve
2006-03-28 23:10
Dakar - Hunger will kill more than
300 000 children in West Africa this year if donor nations fail
to stump up enough money to provide food aid, the United Nations
said on Tuesday.
The world body said it needed $92m to help feed over
five million people - many of them women and children - at
risk of malnutrition in four countries bordering the Sahara
desert: Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Mauritania.
"This year malnutrition will be the cause of death for more
than 300 000 children in the Sahel region if the necessary
measures are not taken in time," said Theophane Nikyema, deputy
director in West Africa for the UN children's agency Unicef.
"We know what must be done, but we need the resources to do
so immediately," he said.
Aid workers blamed a late response by the international
community for exacerbating a food crisis in Niger last year,
when donations only started pouring in once images of emaciated
infants gained worldwide media prominence.
Niger had warned months in advance that drought and locusts
had wiped out harvests, confronting 3.6 million people with food
shortages, but children had already started to die of hunger and
disease by the time significant funding started to flow in.
Although this year's harvests were much stronger, market
prices for cereals remain way above historical norms and many
families are still paying off debts accumulated during last
year's crisis, meaning they are struggling to feed themselves.
In addition, aid workers warn that malnutrition has
long-lasting effects from which many children are still
suffering.
"It is vitally important that this situation is understood
so we avoid falling into the same crisis we had last year," said
Christine van Nieuwenhuyse, deputy director of the UN World
Food Programme's operations in West Africa.
"We've become used to the misery in this region. This
situation here is not new. It is not today that suddenly 39
percent of children suffer from chronic malnutrition," she said.
Donor fatigue
While massive crises such as that in Sudan's Darfur region
attract huge media and donor attention, the grinding poverty
that is a fact of daily life for many in Africa's poorest
countries goes largely unnoticed, aid workers say.
The Sahel - a band of arid savannah which stretches across
the southern fringe of the Sahara - suffers from perpetual food
insecurity and last-minute emergency aid only helps alleviate
the problem in the short term.
The region has been gripped by the worst drought in modern
history since the 1970s.
Longer-term commitments from donor nations are harder to
secure, particularly in the case of what aid workers call
"silent crises" such as that in the Sahel, where there is no
constant diet of shocking images to prick donor consciences.
"We can't expect immediate results," said Herve Ludovic de
Lys, head of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of
Humanitarian Affairs in West Africa.
"The projects that need to be put in place to correct the
structural causes (of this crisis) will take years. But in the
meantime, we have an obligation to save lives," he said.
The problem was compounded by neighbouring countries
including Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria, which import grains
from the Sahel, further reducing supplies for local people.
The UN said it latest appeal aimed to help 2.9 million
people at risk in Niger, 1.3 million in Burkina Faso, 740 000 in
Mali and more than 400 000 in Mauritania.