Niger Drought Leaves Millions On The Brink Of Starvation

Severe drought in Niger has left crop yields insufficient to feed the country's population, leaving millions hungry. Sky News reports almost half of Niger's total population of 15 million are suffering from malnutrition, three million of which are literally on the brink of starvation.

One Nigerien mother, Hadija, explained,

"We grow crops to sell to feed ourselves, but we received little rain in the last growing season and it wasn't enough."

"We didn't harvest any beans or peanuts and the yield of millet was very small. There is no food left over from our last harvest. Really there is nothing."

The group hardest hit by the drought's effect are the country's youngest inhabitants. International nonprofit Save the Children has announced an emergency appeal for aid -- saying that without urgent action, one out of every eight children under the age of five will die in the next month.

Since governments and international donors have been slow to respond, Save the Children is asking individuals to make donations to save lives in Niger.

Comments

[mtheyseed]

06:16 PM on 06/11/2010

This is one organization I would NOT give a dime to. They have a reputation of NOT using the donated monies to help people. This organization is a rip off.

[Kristol Booth]

04:33 AM on 06/24/2010

Some larger NGO's do waste a lot of their cash, in fact they work more like businesses rather than humanitarian organizations. However some NGO's do play a major role and save many lives. I will be donating to Doctors without Borders (MSF) and the World Food Programme (www.wfp.org), even though they are larger organizations, I know that they work in these countries and sometimes only the larger organizations have the infrastructure and capacity to respond to a crisis on such a massive scale.

Everyone can at least do something. As well as donating those who want to do more can go to www.littlesurvivors.org.au and send a pre-written letter to their Government ministers urging them to contribute more to the World Food Programme.

[T4]

09:56 PM on 06/09/2010

Let's be straight and honest with ourselves - there is only so muchof ...time.money, attention, sympathy, etc that onehuman canhave -right nowshouldn;t we addresses some of the need and poverty created by Obama and $2 trillion giveaways tot he banks so they could collapse the eocnomy. 30%of all children in Chicago are in poverty. It is not thatouthercauses are or are not important- theyare all important and we need to prioritize our resources -let's start at home because Ihaven't heard of a single banker giving up his Obama failure bonus to help anyone except themselves.

[abuja19]

12:19 AM on 06/10/2010

So you're not going to help the hungry in Niger, T4? Instead you are going to waste your time complaining about Pres. Obama? T4, you are a zero. Nothing but a big, useless zero.

[drumsgirl]

09:43 AM on 06/10/2010

Ok - how about this. If you live in a country that is perpetually on the verge of starvation, if pretty much all inhabitants are at the very least malnourished - stop having sex (how can you have the energy or hydration to have sex and create life if you are starving anyway!??!) and stop having children you can't feed.