Millions face starvation as Niger prays in vain for rain

Urgent aid is needed to avert a catastrophe in West Africa

By Alastair Stewart To the north of Niger, the creeping Sahara; to the south, oil rich and agriculturally lush Nigeria – this nation straddles the Sahel – dry, hot and cruel. It has suffered catastrophic droughts – 1974, 1984 and 2005. And now, another. Five times the size of the United Kingdom, Niger is one of the poorest nations on earth with child mortality worse than Afghanistan. The absence of regular rainfall throughout 2009 has led to poor harvests, lack of grazing for animals and food reserves exhausted. Hungry people have started adding “bitter” berries to their diet – this is survival food, normally unpalatable but when starving, the unpalatable becomes welcome – essential. The tipping point, according to one expert is about a week away – 15 July. That is when the rainy season is expected. But the starving livestock may nibble away whatever green-shoots push through. Ten leading aid agencies launched a joint appeal yesterday, warning that up to 10 million people across the eastern Sahel, faced acute hunger. The United Nations agrees, it says that the situation is of a magnitude not previously seen. Niger is at the centre of this crisis, with half of its population – 7 million people – going hungry. The statistics, generally, for this West African country, are overwhelming – less than a third of the people are literate: boys spend on average five years in school; girls, just three. Two-thirds of the people of Niger live beneath the poverty line, 85 per cent on less than $2 – or £1 – a day. … At a health centre in Goumbi Kano, established by the charity Care International, one of those taking part in the appeal, and part-funded by the Niger government, I meet two women who had walked 8km, with their malnourished babies, to see Dr Moustaphe Chaibou. Hasana and Maimouna, and babies Farida and Saredja, have been regulars for six weeks. “I have no milk. When the baby cries, I give her millet,” Hasana says. … I asked the doctor what would happen if the rains failed: “Catastrophe, désolé,” he said in perfect French. The drought of 2009 made the September harvest poor – what it yielded was cornered by speculators – poor people had very little to see them through and it is now gone. The “biscuit-barrel” grain stores are empty and have been for weeks. … “We have gone two weeks without being able to cook anything, we are just waiting and hoping that the children send money,” another man whose five children have left their village to seek work and food, says, adding: “The future is in God’s hands, we are waiting for God.”