CAFOD Saving Lives in West Africa Food Crisis

As the food crisis in Niger and Burkina Faso worsens, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development has been helping in the combat against the severe famine by sending grants of £100,000 to its partners in the region.

The region is suffering severe hunger and starvation after a plague of locusts left last year’s crops ruined and a severe drought brought in the "hungry season" months before the next harvest is due.

According to the U.N. up to 3.6 million people are now affected by the food crisis, with around 150,000 children at serious risk of death.

CAFOD director Chris Bain said: "Once again lives will be lost needlessly to hunger. It is completely unacceptable that people in the 21st century cannot afford to eat everyday and it is a moral outrage that people should die of starvation due to the lack of a few million dollars."

Mr Bain also criticised the international community for not responding sooner to the crisis, which was already foreseen last year: "Due to the lack of prompt international response to the initial situation in Niger and Burkina Faso, CAFOD partners together with other aid agencies working in the region are now facing working with people facing a needless disaster."

He continued: "This waste of precious life is exactly what the Make Poverty History campaign is working to extend forever."

In a press release today the UK Government pledged an extra £1 million aid to the famine-stricken region, in addition to the £2 million already promised in aid. This amount is equivalent to 17.5 per cent of the U.N’s more than US$30 million appeal and will feed an extra 200,000 people for a month.

A Save the Children flight funded by the Department for International Development will depart for Niger, the world’s second poorest country, on Wednesday laden with more than 40 tonnes of food arranged by Save the Children.

International Development Secretary Hilary Benn said: "I have been very concerned by the terrible food crisis in Niger, and have this week spoken to Jan Egeland, the U.N.’s Emergency Relief Coordinator, and Jim Morris of the World Food Programme."

The U.N., however, expressed anger at the utter indifference to pleas for aid which have been sounding since last November. Mr Egeland, who heads the UN humanitarian relief, said: "It took graphic images of dying children for this to happen."

The threshold for an international humanitarian disaster must be two deaths a day per 10,000 head of population. This figure was already passed in April.

Kate Pattison, Head of the British charity Oxfam, said: "The main reason for the crisis in Niger is the poor responses to a succession of appeals."

She reiterated the sentiments of Mr Egeland, saying, "This area of the world is notoriously difficult to raise money for. Unfortunately it is not until terrible images appear on television that people seem to be galvanised into action."

At the recent G8 summit held at Gleneagles, Scotland, the leaders of the world’s eight most industrialised nations promised to increase aid to Africa by US$25 billion by 2010, as well as agreeing measures that would save more than 600,000 children dying prematurely from malaria.

Niger was one of the countries to have its debts written off. A food security specialist said, however: "Everyone was so focused on the G8 and eliminating poverty that they just let a huge crisis develop."