Mentre nel Darfur 1.5 milioni sono monitorati e lasciati morire.

niger-map.jpg, image/jpeg, 1040x1225

Non se ne è accorto nessuno.
Qualche giorno fa Jean Ziegler, sociologo svizzero prestato all'Onu, ha lanciato un appello per il Niger, dove 3.3 milioni di persone rischiano di morire di fame nei prossimi due o tre mesi.
In maggio l'OCHA ( ufficio Onu per il coordinamento degli affari umanitari), lanciò un appello urgente chiedendo 16 milioni di dollari, poi cresciuti a 18; mezzo Gilardino, o lo stipendio di due anni di una star del calcio.

La generosità mondiale ha raccolto solo 3.8 milioni di dollari finora, contravvenendo a quello che lo stesso Ziegler ha definito "un obbligo giuridico", prima ancora che morale.
Nel determinare la situazione in Niger, alla natura crudele si è aggiunta l'opera degli organismi internazionali.
La crisi parte da quando la Banca Mondiale chiese come condizione agli aiuti la privatizzazione dei servizi nigeriani.
Una scomoda conseguenza fu la sparizione del servizio veterinario pubblico, che in un paese dedito alla pastorizia era una delle colonne della catena del cibo nigerina.

Spariti i veterinari, diventate "private", quindi costosissime le medicine, la pastorizia nigerina è crollata nel volgere di pochi anni, danneggiando anche la poca agricoltura che sfrutta ancora, e principalmente, la forza animale.

L'anno scorso poi c'è stata una invasione di locuste, che ha devastato i campi e prosciugato le riserve. A questo si è aggiunto il contributo dei politici nigerini, i quali hanno distribuito con il contagocce gli aiuti alimentari per evitare di "alterare i prezzi sul mercato interno", che infatti ora sono alle stelle.

Ultimo effetto, non trascurabile, gli oltre tre milioni di nigerini ridotti all'inedia (tra i quali 800.000 bambini) non sono ora in grado di provvedere alla preparazione dei campi per i futuri raccolti, mancando della forza per uscire dalle loro abitazioni.

18 milioni di euro, non si trovano per evitare la morte di 3.300.000 persone; per lo Tsunami ne sono stati promessi 1.000.000 di milioni (ad onor del vero i colpiti finora non hanno ancora visto quasi nulla), l'ultimo buco nei conti italiani è di 10.000 milioni di euro.

Sui media italiani la notizia non esiste.

800.000 bambini?
http://www.vita.it/articolo/index.php3?NEWSID=57864
....o "solo" 80.000?
http://www.agenews.it/notizia.php?c=4&in=14572

Sudan: Pockets of Severe Malnutrition in Bahr Al Ghazal



UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

July 18, 2005
Posted to the web July 18, 2005

Nairobi

Several counties in the southwestern Sudanese region of Bahr el Ghazal are facing food shortages with thousands of people suffering from severe malnutrition, according to the UN World Food Programme and a famine early warning system.

"Almost 6,000 people were fed in therapeutic and supplementary feeding centres in four counties in Bahr el Ghazal in June," Laura Melo, spokesperson for the UN World Food Programme (WFP), said on Friday.

Pockets of severe malnutrition had been noted in Twic, Gogrial, Aweil and Raga counties, she added.

"We are talking about 6,000 people in four counties. This is a very high number and a situation of great concern," she said, noting that WFP had provided food assistance to 230,000 people in the whole of Bahr el Ghazal in June.

In a separate report, the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS Net) said existing food deficits and a lack of sufficient food aid, on top of this year's dry season, had resulted in extreme food insecurity in the region.

"Some households ran out of food two months before the 'hunger season' [June to August] began, mainly due to last year's poor harvest, in combination with significant reductions in the availability of fish, wild foods and milk," noted the report released on Wednesday.

According to FEWS Net, growing numbers of people returning empty-handed after the peace accord between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) was signed on 9 January had exacerbated the situation.

Most of the 87,000 who had returned to Bahr el Ghazal since the peace accord was signed were now settled in the area around Aweil in the northern part of the state.

"The increasing food insecurity, particularly among poor households, became evident in March, when wild foods and fish were exhausted and sorghum became increasingly scarce in local markets," FEWS Net observed.

At the same time, food aid requirements from January through May were not adequately met as a result of funding shortfalls - less than 60 percent of the necessary food aid had been provided in northern Bahr el Ghazal (including Wau).

"The food security situation in Bahr el Ghazal is one of the most worrying in southern Sudan, but we have been putting food aside to tackle the situation," Melo said.

"Bahr el Ghazal's food needs are huge," she added. "The funds we have are not enough to tackle all the needs in southern Sudan."

So far, only 50 percent - or US $152 million - of the estimated $302 million needed for food aid in southern Sudan during 2005 had been received to date, the WFP spokesperson said.

In May, an assessment report said returnees and poor households in Bahr al Ghazal were having difficulty accessing sufficient food, and malnutrition levels had started climbing in southern Sudan.

The assessment, carried out jointly by UN agencies, NGOs and Sudanese authorities in both government-controlled and SPLM/A-controlled areas during March and April 2005, aimed to estimate the effects of increased returns to south Sudan, in the light of poor agricultural production in 2004.
Relevant Links
East Africa
North Africa
Sudan
Food, Agriculture and Rural Issues

Bahr el Ghazal suffered a severe famine in 1998. At the time, FEWS Net estimated that approximately 220,000 people were affected.

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]

Niger children starving to death
By Hilary Andersson
BBC News, Maradi, southern Niger


Tent
Children are dying daily at feeding centres in southern Niger
Children are dying of starvation in feeding centres in Niger, where 3.6m people face severe food shortages, aid agencies have warned.

The crisis in the south of the country has been caused by a drought and a plague of locusts which destroyed much of last year's harvest.

Aid agency World Vision warns that 10% of the children in the worst affected areas could die.

They say the international community has reacted too late to the crisis.

Carcasses

Niger is a vast desert country and one of the poorest on earth. Millions of people, a third of the population, face food shortages.

Aid agencies estimate that tens of thousands of children are in the advanced stages of starvation.

Children are dying daily in the few feeding centres there are.

A severe drought last year, combined with a plague of locusts, destroyed much of the crop that was needed to feed the people and the cattle they rely on.

Now, across the windswept plains of the Sahel, carcasses of cattle litter the landscape.

Little foreign aid has come into the country to deal with this crisis so far, even though food shortages were predicted months ago.

Aid agencies in the country predict the situation will get worse in the coming months and say the world has responded too late.

Niger food aid is 'misdirected'
A woman waits outside a Save The Children centre with her son
Disease is adding to the dangers now facing children
Large numbers of children are starving to death in Niger because food aid is being misdirected, says France's Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

An average of 40 young children are dying each day in one area in the east of the country, a new study has found.

International relief was sent to the west African nation when the plight of millions was first highlighted in July.

The World Food Programme says it has dispatched food for 1.3 million, with extra supplies for the most vulnerable.

And, along with help from the Niger government and other NGOs, the first round of aid distribution is not far from completion.

Up to three million of Niger's 12 million population are estimated by the UN to be suffering food shortages.

Some 32,000 children with severe malnutrition face death without the necessary food and medical treatment, the UN has said.

'Insufficient and inadequate'

But MSF says specialised food aid is not reaching those in the most extreme stages of starvation - it is being directed instead at the moderately malnourished.

Some areas in the eastern Zinder province have seen no aid at all, says the BBC's Hilary Andersson.



Men 'locked grain stores'

One feeding centre in Zinder for children "between life and death" received 1,000 new patients last week alone, said MSF spokesman Christian Captier.

"The aid is still insufficient and inadequate. It is not targeting the right population at the moment," he told the BBC.

An estimated 1,500 children died in one of area of the province in August alone.

Although millions of dollars worth of aid is now in the country, the situation had visibly worsened in areas our correspondent first visited in July.

Malaria has now set in and many of the starving are now struggling to fight disease in their weakened condition, our correspondent found.

The World Food Programme has rejected claims the aid is being misdirected, saying special supplies for the most vulnerable were airlifted in July and extra provisions are provided for families of children being treated at feeding centres. Meanwhile, journalists have found evidence that social structures may be partly to blame for the crisis, with men locking away food stores when they leave their villages for any length of time.