Screaming Hunger In Niger

Those heartrending images of skinny and dilapidated physiques of adults, children, and infants due to the grisly famine in Niger can be hard to accept by any ordinary mind-set in the world lending some way or the other "a normal life". Usually when we talk about hunger, starvation, malnutrition, and hazardous diseases we instantly come to link our senses with the regions of western African regions and one of them is Niger's crisis which is hitting the international headlines these days.

Not only Niger but other places in Africa like Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Sierra Leone and Togo are also bearing the identical circumstance. It seems like those words has become synonymous to these parts of the world and spells out a gruesome picture of human suffering apparently because of the so-called natural phenomena. Lack of urgent attention of the local government and also by the trusted institution like UN has no doubtedly contributed for the situation to be effectively worse.

Also through the consistent appealing to the western nations by the UN ruling body, only a few (regarding the actual need) help could have been obtained to resolve the crisis so far, and sometimes not even any response for such appeals were obtained. The appealing of the UN began to show its face actually since the November of 2004, and it only came to be fruitful in July but with only one-third of the aid amount asked (i.e. $10 million of $30 million) was given, which was again another struggle to make out a considerable assistance with meager wealth.

It's true that more pledges has been received in the later months than in the past but late obtaining of the aid amounts has resulted in some cases to be worthless as the treatment for some children suffering from malnutrition was already out of remedy. As pointed out by Johanne Sekkenes, the mission head of the M