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Subscribe to RSSA million and a half children are in imminent danger of starvation in West Africa. NBC's Rohit Kachroo reports on the crisis in the heart of the region, Niger. Warning: Some of the images in this report are distressing.
One-and-a-half-million children are in imminent danger of starvation in West Africa, according to The United Nations Children's Fund, despite recent pledges of international aid.
As world leaders gathered for the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development, aid workers warned there were only four weeks left to treat the effects of acute hunger before the rainy season makes huge swathes of the Sahel region inaccessible.
Across western Africa, communities are caught between climate change, conflict and poverty -- yet the global economic crisis means international priorities lie elsewhere.
For example, during its financial crisis Greece has received a hundred times more from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) than Niger during the last few years.
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In hospitals here in southern Niger, a crisis is developing. Many children are at serious risk of dying and for each bed there is a skeletal frame as yet another hunger crisis strikes.
Hair turned red by hunger
Patients include a girl, Amina, whose hair has turned red by a lifetime without enough food, and Ibrahim, an eight-month-old whose tiny body is consumed by the effects of severe malnutrition.
From many miles around, more young patients arrive all the time -- more work for the doctors who've rarely seen anything like this.
Women complain about a lack of rain, but also about a lack of food. Their families may not survive the coming months, they say.
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“What you’re looking at are communities across wide areas that need assistance because, despite best efforts, they have been pushed off their ability to cope,” said Martin Dawes, regional spokesman for UNICEF.
Some help is here: The international response has been swifter than it has been in the past. Earlier this month, the United States pledged over $81 million in additional assistance.
But this is a crisis across many counties, affecting many millions, leaving many lives on a knife-edge – and the U.N. has already said it needs another $1.5 billion to tackle the problem.
The months ahead are crucial here, amid grim warnings about more dry weather, even an influx of locusts. The world has been warned.
Editor's note: Yahaman, the eight-month-old boy featured in our video report on the hunger crisis in Niger died late Tuesday night.
Rohit Kachroo is NBC News' Africa Correspondent. Additional editing by Alastair Jamieson, msnbc.com.
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Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world
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This is the same problem we have in the United States. The poor and Illegals have more children and they continue to be supported by the taxpayers.
F...............g M...........r F...........s
So much for population control. I would have loved to have more kids. But to give the best chance possible for the children we have we decided to not have anymore.
Really simple.
That thing between your legs is not a toy or a plaything.
DAMN people
"The world has been warned", and I don't think God likes this.
1. One African woman at a Food Aid encampment was interviewed
and stated she had 14 children...and when asked if she would
have more children: "Yes, as many as I can give birth to!!!"
2. Has anyone noticed in all these news videos that the mothers
are not emaciated and dying like their children???
They appear very healthy and can carry their children many, many miles.
3. Forced sterilization is the only answer for Africa and its salvation!!!
This has being going on 50 plus years...wanting America and other countries
to continually feed them. (they want everything free)
The local hospital (Catholic by the way) WILL NOT TIE TUBES for a mother
of SEVEN seeking to prevent any more pregnancies.
Religious zealots are insisting on no funding for family planning clinics
because ABORTIONS must be avoided at all cost. Do you know what our government is being pushed to do to satisfy right to lifers?
Feed your neighbor's kids and let your own starve.
What's 1.5 million babies to them? They can crank out that many in no time!
Agreed,its time for african "zero population" team! sterilize the entire country for christ sake!
It's amazing how some people have so much to say about these people that are facing a plight most of us will never see. While you are in your comfy homes and have plenty of food in your fridge, the fact remains there are people dying of hunger in a world that has plenty of food!
The cause is unnatural, not from having babies or not knowing how to grow food It comes from governments that take land, oppess people,wage wars, undo traditional knowledge, don't provide education and basically deliberately cause the strifes and suffering in humankind we are witnessing today.
It is overwhelming for one person to even fanthom solving, but collectively the efforts need to be aimed at the governments of these countries that are abusing, oppressing and mistreating the citizens. That would require a fortitude of spirit that only a few citizens would possess and concern for fellow humans..
The global world is here to stay. Now that we know what is happening we should not ignore. Now that we are privy to things that are happening in other places, we can also lend a voice to our own governments when it comes to economic sanctions regarding imports coming from countries that do not take care of their own.
We all know that whoever controls the money controls the people. Since we know the people of West Africa are being exploited by Belgium then NO ONE should be buying their diamonds. Just by refusing to spend money on products from countries that do not treat ther people right, a huge impact could be achieved and become the catylist for motivating these governments to do the right thing for their people.
Out of the ashes of every oppressive situation there will rise a Phoenix. Lets join the Phoenix and help to make the world a better place.
In the 70's on TV there were only 1,500 starving african babies, in the 80's it was 15,000, in the 90's it was 150,000 and now it's 1.5 million. Uhh, you don't need to fed them you need to neuter them.