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Hunger, Crisis Manipulation Kill Thousands in Africa
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Hunger
kills thousands of children every year in West Africa.
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KHARTOUM,
March 29, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Thousands of
people are dying every year because of hunger over the failure of the
international community to stump up enough money to provide food aid
and the manipulation of humanitarian crisis for political purposes.
Hunger
is feared to kill more than 300,000 in West Africa this year over the
failure of the donor nations to jack up funds for providing food aid
to people the drought-hit area, according to UN reports.
"This
year malnutrition will be the cause of death for more than 300,000
children in the Sahel region if the necessary measures are not taken
in time," Reuters quoted Theophane Nikyema, deputy director in
West Africa for the UN children's agency UNICEF as saying Wednesday,
March 29.
Aid
workers said that the international community only starts to act on
humanitarian crises when they gain worldwide media prominence.
They
cited the late international response for exacerbating a food security
in Niger last year.
Niger
had warned months in advance that drought and locusts wiped out
harvests and confronted 3.6 million people with food shortages.
But
children had already started to die of hunger and disease by the time
significant funding started to flow in, according to the UN.
The
Sahel -- a band of arid savannah which stretches across the southern
fringe of the Sahara -- suffers from perpetual food insecurity and
last-minute emergency aid only helps alleviate the problem in the
short term.
The
region has been gripped by the worst drought in modern history since
the 1970s.
Misery
The
United Nations said it needed a sum of $92 million to help feed over
five million people -- many of them women and children – at risk of
malnutrition in four countries bordering the Sahara desert: Niger,
Mali, Burkina Faso and Mauritania.
"We
know what must be done, but we need the resources to do so
immediately," Nikyema said.
The
UN World Food Program Wednesday echoed similar concerns over the
situation in West Africa.
"It
is vitally important that this situation is understood so we avoid
falling into the same crisis we had last year," said Christine
van Nieuwenhuyse, deputy director of the Program's operations in West
Africa.
"We've
become used to the misery in this region. This situation here is not
new. It is not today that suddenly 39 percent of children suffer from
chronic malnutrition," she said.
Darfur
The
raging conflict in western Sudan's region of Darfur was also an
example of manipulation of humanitarian crisis for political purposes.
"The
situation in Darfur is as bad now as at any time since 2003,"
said Robbie Thomson, head of Darfur aid operations at the
International Organization for Migration.
The
Darfur conflict erupted in April 2003 when the rebel JEM and the SLM
took up arms against the Khartoum government.
The
United Nations said the conflict is causing the world’s worst
humanitarian crisis at present.
An
estimated 670,000 people have fled their homes since the beginning of
the conflict while 110,000 others reportedly sought refuge in
neighboring Chad.
Robbie,
whose agency registers internal refugees, said violence was the main
cause humanitarian aid were not accessible in the region.
"I
see it continuing. I don't see any cause for it to stop. There has
been no solution for the problems," he said.
Despite
the raging humanitarian crisis in the region, the hassle has been
going on over the deployment of international forces in the region.
Western
countries have pressed for sending international forces to replace the
cash-strapped African Union (AU) forces, currently-operating in Darfur.
But the Sudanese government opposed the move.
The
7,000-strong AU force was first deployed in 2004 and is currently
being largely financed by the United States, Canada and the European
Union.
The
International Criminal Court has told the Security Council it has
enough evidence of killing, rape and destruction in the war-ravaged
region to warrant bringing suspects to trial.
But
the Sudanese government established its own special court in June to
try Darfur criminals and has vehemently maintained its right to handle
the case domestically.
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