Food aid arrives in Niger
2005-08-08 21:59
Maradi - Shipments of large quantities of food aid began arriving on Monday in Niger, as humanitarian groups continued to warn that tens of thousands of people could die of starvation.
Trucks were discharging sacks of the staple cereal millet, beans and cooking oil brought from the capital Niamey at a warehouse run by the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) on the outskirts of Maradi.
An employee said another convoy had gone to the country's second city, Zinder.
The food was to be distributed to the local population, including in remote villages by charities, Care and World Vision.
Clement Faye of World Vision said: "Our free distribution programme will begin on Wednesday in the areas identified as critical and extremely critical by the Niger government."
Care to start doling out food
World Vision would be distributing a total of 4 320 tons of food from the WFP in two batches, in August and September.
Care for its part said it would start doling out food on Tuesday at Dakoro, north of Maradi.
Aid groups said earlier that thousands of tons of food were needed for Niger within the next few weeks if tens of thousands of people were to be saved from starvation.
They said the aid that had been dispatched since the world woke up to the situation in the north African country last month, in the wake of plagues of locusts and drought in 2004, was far from adequate.
'Situation could be worse'
Gian Carlo Cirri of WFP said: "We have six to eight weeks to distribute food to 2.5 million people.
"If they are not helped by then, the situation could be much worse than it is today."
Cirri estimated that 23 000 tons of food would be needed in the stricken areas of the country by September, deploring the fact that so far only a third of WFP's aid programme had been funded.
A representative of Niger's ministry of agriculture said: "The next harvests will not take place before the end of September and we don't know if they will be good."
The figure of 2.5 million was the UN estimate of the number suffering from food shortages out of a population of 12 million, of whom 32 000 were children suffering from severe malnutrition who faced death without the necessary food and medical treatment.
Food and sanitation
The UN on Friday raised fivefold to $80m its estimate of the money needed to tackle a "deteriorating" situation with both food and sanitation as well as an "increasing" mortality toll.
The UN said that so far only $25m had been donated, though also on Friday the World Bank extended more than $120m for emergency food aid.
UN co-ordinator for Niger, Michele Falavigna, on Saturday made "an anguished and urgent appeal to the world to save lives", the day after UN Children's Fund deputy director general Rima Salah said "it is not too late to save many more children".
However, the United States had disputed the UN estimates of the numbers in need of food assistance and suggested the figure could be a third of that.