President, PM fight over famine
2005-08-29 11:37
Niamey - The president of the West African state of Niger and his prime minister are at loggerheads over whether the country is in the grip of a famine, local newspapers reported on Sunday.
The country has been hit by a food crisis as the result of drought and the invasion last year of locust swarms which devastated crops.
The United Nations estimates that more than 2.5 million people are in a "situation of food vulnerability" and 32 000 children are undernourished and risk dying.
When the crisis struck, Prime Minister Hama Amadou, head of the ruling party, launched "an anguished appeal" to the international community for emergency aid for more than three million people.
Denial
According to local newspapers he acted "unilaterally" and in so doing angered President Mamadou Tandja, who has denied that his country is suffering from famine and is simply undergoing a "slight cereals deficit".
In Tandja's view, reports of famine are nothing more than "the false propaganda" of people with "political motivations or economic interests".
"The latent crisis between the president and his prime minister is now out in the open owing to the management of the food situation," according to the French weekly The Wheel of History.
It says the conflict between "Tandja and his heir apparent has entered a critical phase" and spoke of the "imminent departure" of the premier.
Denial
Meanwhile the humanitarian organisation Action Against Hunger despatched an aircraft with 20 tons of food aid to Niger on Sunday from Barcelona.
"ACF Spain is sending drugs, nutritional products, logistical material and essential hydraulic and purification equipment, necessary for the treatment of drinking water in feeding centres," it said.
It said conditions were deteriorating in a zone where one of its two new feeding and treatment centres was opening.