Niger: senior UNICEF official sees death firsthand on frontline of war on hunger

International aid may at last be flowing in to alleviate Niger’s food crisis, spurred on by horrific images of starving children, but it arrived too late for one 12-month-old baby boy. He died from severe malnutrition literally before the eyes of the deputy chief of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Rima Salah was visiting the world's second poorest country to see first-hand the situation of hundreds of thousands of children hit hard by the crisis brought on by drought and the worst invasion of crop-devouring locusts in 15 years.

She had gone to a feeding centre run by the non-governmental organization (NGO) Médecins Sans Frontières in Maradi in south Niger, epicentre of the crisis, to spend time with children, their families, and health workers. “For our relief efforts to be the best they can be, I feel I have to see what’s really happening on the ground,” she said.

It was there that the little boy expired in front of Ms. Salah and staff who were with her at the time. “I want all the people who have suffered so much and all those who are working so hard on the relief effort to know that UNICEF considers this an urgent priority,” she said.

Last week the UN raised its emergency flash appeal to almost $81 million to feed 2.7 million of the most vulnerable people in the West African country where some 3.6 million people have been affected by the crisis. The UN has reported an increase in funding in the past two weeks, after the world seemed to ignore the crisis despite warnings as far back as November.

“Only now has the world at last woken up to the reality that thousands of children in Niger could soon die,” UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland wrote in an opinion piece over the weekend. “Once again, it has taken horrific images of starving children to do so.

“This crisis could have been averted had political will and resources been available early on. We could have saved children from malnourishment for as little as $1 per child per day. Now it will cost many times more. Aid agencies are racing against time to save lives. But they may be too late, especially for the young children,” he said.

“Let us learn from the tragedy in Niger. Early funding and early action save lives and help prevent a deadly spiral of disease, hunger and displacement from spinning out of control,” he added, noting that in recent years nearly half of all global humanitarian funding has come in the last quarter of the year.

“These delays are deadly. So, too, is the absence of a predictable pool of money to draw upon immediately in an emergency,” he declared, urging support for Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s proposal for a 10-fold increase in UN emergency funds to $500 million to enable aid agencies to jump-start operations.

Mr. Egeland borrowed from the routine of everyday life to highlight the predicament faced by anguished humanitarian aid workers when they seek to save lives but have no funds to pay for the water, medicine, shelter or food.

“Think what would happen if your local fire department had to petition for money before turning on the fire hose,” he added. “We must shorten the distance between crisis and consciousness, awareness and action. And we must end the tyranny of complacency that has consigned millions of people to this dehumanizing existence.”