15/7/2005
Agency Triples Estimate Of Niger Food Emergency

The World Food Programme (WFP) - the UN's emergency food arm - increased the estimate of the number of potential famine victims in Niger to 1.2 million, almost triple its original estimate. Niger - one of Africa's poorest countries - is suffering from a poor rainy season. Locust swarms have also recently devastated crops and grazing land.

“Children are dying and adults are going hungry,” said WFP Country Director, Gian Carlo Cirri, appealing for a rapid response to the worsening food crisis. “Niger needs help today, not tomorrow.” The agency needs an additional $12 million to cover the rapidly rising costs of the total operation.

Most immediately at risk are young children. Feeding centres run by Médecins sans Frontières are reporting admission rates nearly three times those during the same period last year. Even in a good year, malnutrition rates amongst young children in Niger are extremely high. Some 82 per cent of the population rely on subsistence farming and cattle rearing, while only 15 per cent of the land is suitable for farming. There is little irrigation, leaving most farmers at the mercy
of the rains.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said this week that acute malnutrition rates had risen to 13.4 per cent in the southern Maradi and Zinder Regions, with 2.5 per cent of this group identified as severely malnourished children under age 5. “Under the best of circumstances, 40 per cent of Niger’s children – or one million – suffer some form of malnutrition,” the agency said. “This number has increased dramatically because of the current food shortage.”

Niger's Government has divided the country into 106 surveillance zones and only in 19 of these zones is there a satisfactory nutritional status, says the UN. Meanwhile, the next harvest of millet, the country's basic foodstuff, is not due until October.