Hunger strike to get food aid
2005-08-05 09:28
Accra - A Ghanaian official at a women right's advocacy organisation on Thursday began a hunger strike in a campaign to raise money for people in Niger who have been starving following poor harvests and destruction of crops by locusts.
Kwaku Antwi-Boasiako, a programmes manager at Abantu for development, has erected a tent in front of the offices of a radio station where he hopes to receive donations.
He told a news conference in Accra he hopes to attract attention to the severe hunger in Niger. Food aid is now beginning to arrive in Niger after extensive television reports on the famine.
Antwi-Boasiako said he would continue the strike as far as his health would permit. He said he decided to begin the hunger strike campaign after he saw harrowing images of the situation on television.
A really desperate situation
"Its really desperate," Antwi-Boasiako said. "One instance that really saddened me was a woman who had delivered only three weeks earlier. She couldn't breastfeed because she was not lactating as a result of not having food to eat."
Antwi-Boasiako says if one million Ghanaians could each give 10 000 cedis (just a little more than $1) he would be able to raise about $1m.
The West African state of Niger needs at least $13.8m in aid to ease starvation, Britain's Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) said earlier this week. It said nearly eight million people are at risk of hunger in Niger, Mali, Mauritania and Burkino Faso.
Around 2.5 million people are suffering from food shortages in Niger alone, with at least 800 000 children at risk of malnutrition. - Sapa-dpa
- SAPA