“Alarm grows over drought-stricken Niger”

Srimad-Bhagavatam, 5.1.2, purport: […] The next prediction to be fulfilled, which is already coming to pass, is that because of the sinful activities of the citizens and the government, rain will become increasingly scarce. Gradually there will be complete drought and no production of food grains.

People will be reduced to eating flesh and seeds, and many good, spiritually inclined people will have to forsake their homes because they will be too harassed by drought, taxation and famine. The Krishna consciousness movement is the only hope to save the world from such devastation. It is the most scientific and authorized movement for the actual welfare of the whole human society. Full Chapter

“Alarm grows over drought-stricken Niger”

Wed Jul 21, 2010 5:55am GMT – ROME (Reuters) – The United Nations sounded the alarm over drought-stricken Niger on Tuesday as the World Food Programme (WFP) doubled aid operations and the U.N. appeal for the west African country was raised to $371 million.

With 7.1 million people or 47.7 percent of its population facing food shortages, Niger lies at the centre of a food and malnutrition crisis that is affecting nearly 10 million people in the arid Sahel region that runs south of the Sahara desert.

“The drought in Niger is an unfolding catastrophe for millions of people,” WFP executive director Josette Sheeran said.

The food crisis in Niger has grown dramatically since the last harvest in September 2009 and young children are under threat from malnutrition.

“We are massively scaling up special nutritional help for children under two years of age, whose brains and bodies face permanent damage from acute malnutrition,” Sheeran said.

The WFP now aims to feed 7.9 million people until the end of the year, up from 4.3 million previously, but said that it had barely half the funds needed to do so.

OCHA, the U.N. agency which is coordinating the aid effort, announced it was raising the target of the global appeal to $371 million. Less than a week ago it upgraded the original appeal size to $253 million from $191 million, citing a growing risk of disease and death.

An OCHA spokeswoman in the Nigerien capital Niamey said donors had so far contributed $142 million, leaving a $229 million shortfall to meet the new target.

“People are living on the edge and donors must step up their efforts or risk an even greater tragedy,” said Kirsty Hughes, head of advocacy for Oxfam aid group in Dakar, Senegal.
“It is also vital that food aid is complemented with direct cash support to the most vulnerable hungry people,” she said of a strategy aimed at allowing poor Nigeriens to buy food at local markets where the price of staples has rocketed.

The Sahel zone stretching from Mauritania in the west to Sudan in east Africa suffers longstanding chronic food shortages, poverty and extreme vulnerability to drought.

The U.N. says about 60 percent of households or 1.6 million people in Chad, which along with Niger faces the worst threat, are suffering food shortages while child mortality had increased over the year.