Emergency Food Airlifted to Starving Niger as Appeals Intensify

WASHINGTON, DC, August 4, 2005 (ENS) - Food aid is being rushed to Niger's starving children by air as aid agencies work to beat the oncoming rainy season that will make logistics difficult. On Friday the United States will charter two jumbo freighter flights to airlift 206 metric tons of special high-energy food aid from Vatry, France, to Niger's capital of Niamey the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) said yesterday in a statement.

This high-energy food will be distributed by partners of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to more than 34,000 children enrolled in supplemental feeding programs in Niger.

Niger mother presents her starving child to a doctor. (Photo courtesy UNICEF)

The announcement marks the second time in the Niger crisis that USAID has airlifted special food for UNICEF. On July 18, USAID airlifted 45 MT of UNIMIX, a special food for malnourished children, from Brussels to Niamey. The airlifts raise the total amount of U.S. support to battle food insecurity in Niger in 2005 to approximately $13.75 million.

An Ilyushin 76 aircraft took off from the UN World Food Programme's humanitarian response depot in Brindisi, southern Italy, on July 28, delivering 44 metric tons of high-energy biscuits to Niamey. Two more airlifts from Brindisi will move aid to Niamey in the coming days, bringing mobile warehouses, generators and 4x4 vehicles as well as biscuits.

UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Rima Salah arrived in Niamey Wednesday, to survey the needs of hundreds of thousands of children and assess UNICEF efforts to assist children suffering from severe and moderate under-nutrition.

Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF, Rima Salah is in Niger on a fact finding mission.(Photo courtesy UNICEF)

“For our relief efforts to be the best they can be I feel I have to see what’s really happening on the ground,” Salah said. “I want all the people who have suffered so much, and all those who are working so hard on the relief effort to know that UNICEF considers this an urgent priority.”

UNICEF Niger has issued an additional emergency appeal for US$14.6 million to care for 32,000 children suffering from severe under-nutrition and 160,000 children suffering from moderate under-nutrition in Niger and to help stop a deadly cycle of starvation.

UNICEF issued an appeal for Niger in April of $1.35 million, so with this request for funding, the total stands at nearly $16 million.

At least 3.6 million people in Niger have been made vulnerable by the current crisis - including 800,000 children under five years of age. Admissions at UNICEF supported therapeutic feeding centers in Niger are rising, with more than twice as many children requiring care than during the same time period last year.

Nana Fatima Moussa, seventeen months, weighed just 4.3 kg, or 9.5 pounds, when she began treatment for severe malnutrition at a UNICEF-supported supplementary feeding centre in Maradi, Niger. (Photo courtesy UNICEF)

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Wednesday tripled its emergency appeal for Niger’s escalating food crisis, warning the international community that more food aid would be needed to save 2.5 million people from extreme hunger and malnutrition.

Niger’s so-called lean season, lasting from April to October, combined with serious food shortages due to last year’s drought and locust invasion, have obliged WFP to revise the cost of its lifesaving operation from US$16 million to US$57.6 million – the third adjustment in six months.

Under the expanded operation, WFP will target 2.5 million severely hungry people in southern Niger – the epicenter of the crisis – providing supplementary food to children and mothers and family rations until the end of the lean season.

Rations for three months following the October harvest are provided for a further 500,000 people to serve as a safety net in case of need.

“With the situation deteriorating over recent weeks, our main objective is to save lives,” said James Morris, WFP’s executive director. “Whole families are suffering because of a desperate shortage of food, which has forced them to eat just one meal a day of maize, leaves or wild fruits.”

WFP is not only doubling the number of people receiving food assistance, but also giving them a wider variety of nutritious foods. By building up the blanket feeding of children under five, as well as providing supplementary feeding to pregnant and lactating mothers, WFP aims to bring down acute levels of malnutrition – exceeding 20 percent in many areas.

Total admissions to therapeutic feeding centers this year have nearly quadrupled compared with 2004, said Morris, with some 11,000 children having received treatment.

“If donors had responded earlier, the cost of this operation would be hugely reduced, as the situation has deteriorated severely over recent months,” Morris said.

Mothers wait to have their children weighed at a mobile clinic run by Medecins sans Frontieres at Loudou in Niger’s Tahoua region. The worst cases of malnutrition will be sent to the feeding centre in the town of Keita. (Photo by Mahamane Goni courtesy WFP)

In May, as part of this effort, USAID provided $1.6 million in emergency assistance for nutritional and agricultural relief programs countrywide, including $1 million for the American NGO World Vision to set up community therapeutic feeding centers in the Maradi and Zinder regions.

To address ongoing agricultural concerns, the USAID assistance included $500,000 for seeds for 24,000 families in the Tillaberi and Zinder Regions through the American NGO Catholic Relief Services.

Additionally, on July 26, USAID announced the delivery of 4,320 metric tons of emergency food assistance - sorghum, lentils, split peas, rice and vegetable oil - valued at $2.9 million.

Some 1,000 metric tons of this food will arrive from neighboring countries and will be distributed to needy people in Niger over the next several days. An additional 600 tons is due in the country by the end of August. The rest is being shipped from ports in the United States this week.

After a slow start, the international community has rallied over the past two weeks to support the world’s second poorest country with some generous donations; WFP’s previous request for US$16 million is now fully funded.

But donors have been playing catchup with the tragedy unfolding in Niger ever since failing to heed warnings from WFP, other UN agencies and non-governmental organisations at the start of the year, when Niger faced one of its worst ever hunger crises.

Donations only started flowing in after television pictures showed heart-rending images of Niger’s hunger from feeding centers in Maradi in southern Niger. The television coverage came soon after the commitments made on Africa’s behalf at the G8 summit and the publicity given to the continent’s plight at the Live8 concerts.

“This was a desperately needed wake-up call, but the response we have received so far is encouraging," Morris said. "We can still save lives.”

In addition to the appeals from UNICEF and the World Food Programme, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization Tuesday renewed its appeal for $4 million for emergency agricultural assistance for Niger.

Funds are urgently needed to provide veterinary services and feed for livestock, which play a key role in the livelihoods and food security of many of the country's most vulnerable pastoralist households.

Livestock assistance is needed for more than 10,000 families who have lost their animals. Funds are also required to provide crop seeds for the next planting season starting in October to help around 95 000 vulnerable households get back on their feet.

Without this assistance, the crisis could worsen and more food aid would be needed.

"Livestock are crucial to agro-pastoralist families in Niger, for income as well as food," said Fernanda Guerrieri, chief of FAO's Emergency Operations Service. "The sale of livestock is often a measure of last resort, after families have already consumed all of their cereal stocks and require cash to buy food for the lean period before the next harvest. A loss of livestock or a decrease in their market value can have a devastating impact on these families' food security."