Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Fame in Niger

Fame. Un assassino che non merita dotte disquisizioni geopolitiche, nevvero?
E poi, musulmani che si occupano di sostegno ai poveri non sono "trendy",
oggi, eh?
Namib
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*Associated Press/AP Online
DAN MALLAM, Niger - The thatched-roof huts where villagers
store grain for the lean season are empty. The only meal of the day
is acacia leaves boiled into a thick paste, eaten in the evening in
hopes it will lull the children to sleep. After months of repeated
pleas from the United Nations, international aid is starting to
trickle into this West African nation ravaged by drought and
locusts. But it has yet to reach villages like Dan Mallam, where the
hungry can do little but wait for help and the next harvest.
"Everything that the stomach can contain, we eat ...
anything that can calm the hunger," said Ibrahim Koini, whose
gray beard and emaciated frame make him look much older than his 45
years. "We've come to eat the same leaves we give our
cows."
The diet of acacia and other leaves is taking a toll on
children, whose malnourished state is clear from their swollen
bellies and heads that appear too big for skeletal bodies.
Acacia leaves provide some nutrition, but are inadequate
because they lack iron, zinc, magnesium and protein. Adults can get
by on the calories such a diet provides, but calories alone are not
enough for children, UNICEF says.
Many children in the village 400 miles east of the capital,
Niamey, have stayed home from school because they are too weak to
concentrate on their studies.
Thirteen-year-old Yacoumba Mati, described by his teacher as
a bright student, managed to make it through his final exams. He
wants to become a doctor - and he hopes to leave Niger one day.
"Because here there is nothing to eat," he said.
Most villagers sold their cows and goats to avoid losing
them to the drought. Milk, flour and meat are too expensive. Niger's
government offers millet at $18 for a 220-pound bag, but that is
just as out of reach for most people as the unsubsidized price of
$54.
An international aid group has set up a feeding center and
clinic just 30 miles away in the town of Maradi, but Dan Mallam's
villagers can't afford the trip. Adults are left watching their
children's energy, muscles and weight dwindle away.
"I cannot afford to leave the rest of the family behind
to take the little one to hospital," said Ibrahim Fakirou,
fanning flies from the face of his son Mouhamou, a 2-year-old
wobbling on spindly legs. "I have to plow my farm to feed the
children and my wife is seven months pregnant. I just cannot
leave."
Niger's 11.3 million people regularly rank among the world's
poorest, and drought and a locust invasion last year have put some
3.6 million of them on the verge of starvation.
The world has been slow to react. The United Nations first
appealed for help in November and got almost no response. Another
appeal for $16 million in March brought in about $1 million. An
appeal May 25 for $30 million has received about $10 million, U.N.
officials say.
But donations have jumped dramatically in the last week
because of increased media attention and TV images of starving
children, U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland says.
Among the aid groups working in Niger is the Kuwait-financed
Agency for Muslims in Africa, which is offering emergency assistance
in Maradi.
It is providing five balanced meals a day to 300
malnourished children and three to their mothers. And it recently
opened feeding centers in two nearby villages - though not in Dan
Mallam - but officials say the group is struggling to cope with the
growing number of needy.
When the first U.N. appeal was made, only $1 a day for each
needy person would have helped solve the food crisis, the United
Nations has said. Now $80 is needed each day per person because it
is more expensive to treat people once they are weakened by
malnutrition, officials say.
"We need food, equipment for our doctors and
medicine," said Abdelkak Azeroual, an official in Maradi with
the Agency for Muslims in Africa.

 finito.
Non ho resistito alla tentazione...
Am,

 Non ho resistito alla tentazione...
Tranquillo, ce lo aspettavamo tutti.
Palmiro Pangloss
-- 
"But, Michael, if you ever show up at my front door with a camera I'll 
kill you."
Clint Eastwood to Michael Moore
National Board of Review awards dinner at the Tavern on the Green, New 
York, NY 11.01.05

"amalric" <ama...@TOGLIMIalice.it> wrote in message
news:2005072523220043658%amalric@TOGLIMIaliceit...
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#_M'hai preceduto di poco...quello sopra, si che e`Illuminismo.
Giano

 #_M'hai preceduto di poco...
QED.
Palmiro Pangloss

 wrote in message
news:1122360521....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...

#_' m sorry, sono un neofita degli acronimi.
CMQ t'aspettavo e opla'!
T'enfili spesso de 'sti ggggiorni , come mai?
Magna' biada per 364 gg. e`dura immagino....ettecredo che bisogna fa' un
manifesto quando se vede 'na bistecca! :)
Gli sventolamenti delle bistecche, mi ricordano tanto il film "Miseria e
nobilta`" di Toto`, lui sventolava spagetti...o era "Ricchi e poveri" boh!
Cavalie', qui in Beeflandia "le fiorentine" somigliano a un materasso a due
piazze; con una di quelle potete fa tutti un'altra festa e c'e`una ditta
specializzata che le esporta freschissime per Courier Express...la prossima
volta basta che me da un fischio. :)
Giano

amalric ha scritto:
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
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m'hai letto nel pensiero... 
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