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Food Crisis in West Africa Threatens Thousands of Children
Westport, CT (August 16, 2005) –
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Niger, screening for malnutrition at Kaouna health center. Children are weighed and measured before receiving food assistance. |
Save the Children continues to expand its emergency response to the food shortage crisis in Niger and Mali, two of Africa’s poorest countries.
A lethal combination of poor rainfall and locust infestation in West Africa have devastated harvests and left tens of thousands of children and their families facing starvation in both countries.
Save the Children also is monitoring developments elsewhere in Africa, especially in Malawi and Mozambique, which also appear vulnerable to food shortages.
Three Save the Children aid planes have arrived in Niger with more than 70 tons of essential supplies to support therapeutic feeding for severely malnourished children and those recovering from malnutrition.
Save the Children also is mobilizing relief efforts in Mali where as many as 1 million people are suffering from malnutrition. The agency plans to launch a two-month food distribution program among children and families in the Goa region, located in the northern part of the country, where poverty rates are among the highest in the world.
In Niger, Save the Children is focusing its current activities on assisting 3,000 children and their families in southern Niger where food shortages are most acute. In the next two months the agency also will distribute cereal, oil and vegetables to about 20,000 families with malnourished children.
Critical supplies that Save the Children is providing in Niger include tents and other essentials to set up therapeutic feeding centers for starving children as well as emergency health kits, supplementary feeding kits, 20 tons of ready-to-eat food such as biscuits or porridge and 16 tons of a new product called plumpy’nut, a read-to-eat food that tastes like peanut butter but is fortified with all the nutrients a moderately malnourished child needs to avoid severe malnutrition.
Save the Children also is distributing water filters, rehydrating salt, 500 mosquito nets and kits for rapid malaria testing. “We are concentrating our efforts in both countries on providing children and their families immediate assistance with food and medical supplies," said Rudy Von Bernuth, who heads Save the Children USA’s humanitarian relief operations. "The situation has reached a critical point with many thousands of children at risk of acute malnutrition. Malnutrition rates are expected to peak between now and mid-September.”
Toby Porter, Director of Emergencies for Save the Children UK, noted, “Our team in Niger has been shocked by the levels of malnutrition in the region. Without urgent assistance a quarter of the country's 12 million people will go hungry, and as always children are especially vulnerable. Our emergency team is working hard to ensure that the most vulnerable children are given the best chance of survival."
Questions and answers on the crisis in West Africa.
