Food by the truckload finally reaching Niger

NIGER: A locust invasion last year followed by drought has left a third of the population in this already desperately poor west African nation at risk of malnutrition or worse, with children the most vulnerable. But repeated UN appeals beginning in November went unanswered until the situation reached crisis. On Thursday and Friday, 278 metric tonnes of beans and oil were delivered to Concern International in Tahoua, some 400 kilometres northwest of Maradi, the eastern town that has become a hub for aid agencies. In the World Food Program-me’s (WFP) warehouse located in Maradi’s Ali Dansofho neighbourhood, some 2,000 metric tonnes of sorghum bought in Nigeria and 41 metric tonnes  of vegetable oil and 69 metric tonnes of beans are ready to be dispatched. Various aid agencies will distribute the WFP stocks.

“Things have been crazy over the past few days,” said Ibrahim Badamassi, regional coordinator of the World Food Programme in Maradi, while keeping a watchful eye on the dozens of men loading two trucks ready to leave for Tahoua. A transportation and loading order from the WFP office in Niamey reached Badamassi by fax on July 29 and in the afternoon, the first truckload was delivered to the warehouse of the Agency for Muslims in Africa, an aid group working in this overwhelmingly Muslim country. In all, the agency will receive 250 metric tonnes of sorghum. “We thank God, even if the food came a little late,” said Mohammed Abdoulaye of the Agency for Muslims in Africa, while opening the storage room to show the already depleted resources, just enough to last a couple of weeks for some 700 mothers and children, feeding them every day, up to five meals per malnourished child.

“With what we just received, we can do even more, send the mothers home with some extra food,” Abdoulaye said, as a group of women, some wearing long veils, pounded sorghum or stirred pots filled with rice for lunch. For Neil Brown, a member of the British Red Cross Emergency Response Unit, distribution also begins with a stop at the WFP warehouse. After leaving an address with Badamassi for delivery of four tons of beans, 53 metric tonnes of sorghum and 2,000 litres of oil, Brown explains that distribution will only start in about a week, after an expected 113 metric tonnes of enriched flour arrives. “The grains and enriched flour has to go hand in hand, otherwise the nutritional programme is unsuccessful,” he said. On Friday, 80 metric tonnes of biscuits were airlifted from Italy to Niamey, the capital, 660 kilometres west along the desert road.

A shipment of 674 metric tonnes of rice, 115 metric tonnes  of oil and 148 metric tonnes of beans will arrive in the coming days at the WFP warehouse in Maradi. Yesterday, an Antovov 12 cargo plane, chartered by the French aid organisation Reunir, arrived at Maradi airport from the southern French town of Marseille. On board were former French health minister Bernard Kouchner, a founding member of the association, and 18 metric tonnes of enriched milk and a highly nutritional peanut paste.

In Paris yesterday, the foreign affairs ministry released a letter French President Jacques Chirac had sent to Nigerien President Mamadou Tandja expressing French solidarity with the people of Niger and announcing France would triple development aid to euro4.6 million to help the country feed itself. France was also doubling, to more than euro1 million, its contributions to WFP to feed the hungry in the worst-hit areas, according to Chirac’s letter. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy has been visiting Niger since Thursday.