Will compassion stretch as far as the Sahel?
admin August 30th, 2010
The eyes of the world, of course, are on Pakistan and the terrible damage and displacement that the floods there are causing. But in West Africa a crisis of similar proportions is affecting just as many people – but generating only a tiny percentage of the column inches (or the donor dollars) that accrue to Pakistan.
First, drought led to crop failures and the threat of famine – especially in Niger and Chad, where more than seven million people are affected. Now the drought has broken, but it has been replaced by torrential rain, which has created further problems by causing flooding and destroying crops.
In Niger the rains have caused the number of people displaced by flooding to double from 111,000 last week to nearly 200,000 this week, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). OCHA is calling on donors and aid agencies for urgent supplies of shelter materials, blankets and mosquito nets.
According to a report carried by IRIN News, the flooding has aggravated a countrywide food security crisis, in which nearly half of Niger’s 15.2 million people are experiencing hunger after the harvests failed.
In neighbouring Chad, flooding has destroyed homes, crops, livestock, wells and latrines in communities already pummelled by food shortages and high malnutrition. Drought in 2009 meant at least two million had to deal with food shortages. IRIN News reports that floods have affected 20,000 households in the country and left at least 47,000 people homeless.
The BBC is reporting that the flooding is the worst for 80 years, with the River Niger running at its highest level since the 1930s. There’s an audio report for BBC Radio 4′s Today progamme on this page too, with a series of photographs of the area around Niamey, the capital of Niger.
With the world already having supported relief work in Haiti in January and the flooding in Pakistan – not to mention severe flooding in parts of China as well – is there compassion (and money) left over for the people of the Sahel?
- South Asia , South East Asia , West Africa
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