After Sall appealed to bilateral and multilateral partners to help rural areas affected by food deficits on 3 April, Abdoul Aziz Diallo, President of the Senegalese Red Cross (SRC), told IRIN: "We [knew about the situation](http://www.irinnews.org/Report/94826/SENEGAL-Drought-response-slowed-by-election-fever) but the previous regime did not want to make a public declaration, since they thought it would prove their agricultural programmes were not efficient."