Some Progress In Food Crisis In Niger,...

but UN raises alarm over Malawi

26 August 2005 – Although food assistance is finally coming into Niger after an initially slow response, the United Nations emergency relief coordinator today raised the alarm over a looming crisis in the southern African country of Malawi where some 4.2 million to 4.6 million people will be facing food insecurity by the end of the year.

“We are trying also now to bring out early warnings for Malawi…we already see that 45 per cent of children under five are stunted due to malnutrition, diarrhoea and other diseases. Twenty-two per cent are clearly underweight,” Jan Egeland, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, told a news briefing today in UN headquarters in New York.

And even in Niger, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) expressed concerns today about signs of a slowdown in support as world attention waned.

Read the entire story here.

The UN has received over $40 Billion in donations to it's World Food Programme WFP and shipped 6,000 tonnes of food to Niger and is only just beginning to have a small impact on the plight of starving and malnourished children and adults and now trouble is brewing in neighboring Malawi where children are so malnourished that 45% of kids under five have experienced stunted growth and 22% are underweight.

Where will it all end, and when will the world finally take some responsibility and action on behalf of our fellow human beings who are
starving, ailing and dying from lack of food, clean water and adequate medical attention and care? Does no one care that PEOPLE are dying by the thousands every day in sub-saharan Africa that could be saved if we would just give a damn?!? $40 Billion is nothing, when you consider that only a small fraction of that money comes from America and the other industrial world-leaders.

May I suggest that Africa's plight is not close enough to home for most of us to care? The news media does not go out of it's way to air or print stories about the death and sickness that is ravishing that part of the world. I am going to do everything in my power to keep the plight of those in Niger and Malawi and Sudan and every other area of the world where people are dying because their human brothers and sisters don't care enough to even pray for them.

May I suggest that Africa's plight is not close enough to home for most of us to care? The news media does not go out of it's way to air or print stories about the death and sickness that is ravishing that part of the world. I am going to do everything in my power to keep the plight of those in Niger and Malawi and Sudan and every other area of the world where people are dying because their human brothers and sisters don't care enough to even pray for them.

Well don't know about the praying part, rather be more direct in my approach if you know what I mean, but do please keep us posted.