Sahel hunger crisis: "an unfolding calamity"
2012-08-16 Vatican Radio
(Vatican Radio) The charity Christian Aid is escalating its appeal for funds to tackle the food crisis in Africa's Sahel region amid reports that the situation is deteriorating fast. It says there are an estimated 19 million people across the Sahel who are in dire need and more than a million children who are at risk of severe acute malnutrition. Andrew Hogg, Christian Aid's head of media, has just returned from Mali, one of the worst affected countries , where the hunger crisis has been exacerbated by conflict in its northern areas. He spoke to Vatican Radio's Susy Hodges about what he saw during his visit to the stricken country.
Listen to the extended interview with Andrew Hogg of Christian Aid:
Hogg says the situation in Mali "is very serious and getting worse all the time" ... with "very severe food shortages." One of the reasons why it is deteriorating, he explains, is because "people continue to flee from rebel-controlled areas of the north." Owing to the drought last year across the Sahel, Hogg says that in Mali "the grain stores are bare" and he was told by the mayor of one town he visited that "people here face real starvation." When asked how much food people in the hunger-stricken areas were surviving on each day, Hogg says he was shown by one elderly man "a very small cereal bowl full of millet seeds" and was told that this was "the daily ration for TWO adults."
Christian Aid has managed to feed more than 175,000 people in recent months but Hogg says unfortunately this "is a drop in the ocean" compared with the total needs of the people in Mali and the other countries of the Sahel region. When asked if he felt this hunger crisis was getting the attention it deserved, Hogg says the warning bells have been ringing for a long time and he fears a repetition of what happened in the Horn of Africa in 2011. There, he said, "it took an actual famine for the world media and the international community as a whole to sit up and take notice."
One of the problems, Hogg went on, is that the world is "full of broken promises" with many countries having pledged "billions of dollars" in aid to help feed these people a few years back and now "a lot of that money simply isn't forthcoming." The hunger crisis in the Sahel, he says, " is a calamity beginning to unfold effectively on our (Europe's) doorstep."
(Vatican Radio) The charity Christian Aid is escalating its appeal for funds to tackle the food crisis in Africa's Sahel region amid reports that the situation is deteriorating fast. It says there are an estimated 19 million people across the Sahel who are in dire need and more than a million children who are at risk of severe acute malnutrition. Andrew Hogg, Christian Aid's head of media, has just returned from Mali, one of the worst affected countries , where the hunger crisis has been exacerbated by conflict in its northern areas. He spoke to Vatican Radio's Susy Hodges about what he saw during his visit to the stricken country.Listen to the extended interview with Andrew Hogg of Christian Aid:
Hogg says the situation in Mali "is very serious and getting worse all the time" ... with "very severe food shortages." One of the reasons why it is deteriorating, he explains, is because "people continue to flee from rebel-controlled areas of the north." Owing to the drought last year across the Sahel, Hogg says that in Mali "the grain stores are bare" and he was told by the mayor of one town he visited that "people here face real starvation." When asked how much food people in the hunger-stricken areas were surviving on each day, Hogg says he was shown by one elderly man "a very small cereal bowl full of millet seeds" and was told that this was "the daily ration for TWO adults."
Christian Aid has managed to feed more than 175,000 people in recent months but Hogg says unfortunately this "is a drop in the ocean" compared with the total needs of the people in Mali and the other countries of the Sahel region. When asked if he felt this hunger crisis was getting the attention it deserved, Hogg says the warning bells have been ringing for a long time and he fears a repetition of what happened in the Horn of Africa in 2011. There, he said, "it took an actual famine for the world media and the international community as a whole to sit up and take notice."
One of the problems, Hogg went on, is that the world is "full of broken promises" with many countries having pledged "billions of dollars" in aid to help feed these people a few years back and now "a lot of that money simply isn't forthcoming." The hunger crisis in the Sahel, he says, " is a calamity beginning to unfold effectively on our (Europe's) doorstep."
