No, I’m not talking about Wilson’s trip. If you are not restricted to USA media and the blogosphere for news, you’ll know already that I’m talking about the 3.6 million people about to starve to death there:
“The situation is desperate. Even the limited food that is available has soared in price, rendering it unaffordable for most families, and there is no hope of any harvest for at least three months,” said Natasha Kafoworola Quist, an Oxfam spokeswoman.
“Families are feeding their children grass and leaves from the trees to keep them alive.”
Oxfam said U.N. appeals for aid were “dangerously” underfunded, with only one third of the money needed from donors being pledged. In many cases, the pledged money hasn’t arrived, the agency added.
The United Nations first appealed for assistance for Niger in November and got almost no response. Another appeal for $16 million in March got about $1 million. The latest appeal on May 25 for $30 million has received about $10 million.
We spend that much money in an hour in Iraq. This is so goddam preventable! Why are the American news media ingoring this? More important, why are the blogs ignoring this?
Aid is long overdue. The BBC World coverage has been horrifying, every night. Remember all the people killed in the tsunami disaster? Add another zero on the end of that figure and you’re almost getting close to Niger.
Oxfam needs donations now. Please!
So what of the newly pledged aid from the G8? Where are we with that money and if has not been sent in some form or another why not?
Just got a letter from International Rescue Committee theirc.org with an endorsement from Paul Newman
Media Girl, I wrote a related diary about the BBC coverage and some of the story. There have been other diaries that of course get buried here by domestic US politics in the same way the story gets buried in the media.
This report explains that a similar situation is brewing in the neighbouring countries of Burkina Faso, Mali and Mauritania. Unfortunately it takes some deperate pictures to get emergency aid on its way – a UK flight arrived today and I believe that food has been sent from the US. The emphasis though is to buy locally. The poor do not have the money or property to pay for this but it is a good way of not getting the recovering farming going. I’d like to draw your attention to one short part at the bottom of the page.
Those 10 day by the way have been when the BBC has been broadcasting Hilary Andersson’s dispatches referred to in the diaries I mentioned above. It has done this despite the London bombings. If you follow the link to the BBC site I have just given you can click on a button marked “video” on the right hand side which will take you to a player for some of their reports on the crisis. I should warn you that if you click on this or on the images link that is also there, there are extremely distressing images. The CNN page you referred to has two of the more sanitised photographs.
The West is not entirely responsible in this case. The Niger government was criminally complacent. This about a demonstration at the start of June (also reported on BBC broadcast news):