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Poor harvests brought on by drought have caused people in Niger to leave their villages in search of sustenance in one of the worst food crises the Sahelian country has seen in over 16 years, according to state officials.
According to the Foreign Ministry, a shortfall of 163,000 mt in the 2000 agricultural season has affected an area that has nearly 3.6 million inhabitants or 35 percent of the country’s population.
Nafoga Adamou, head of the Early Warning Unit at Niger’s Systeme d’Alerte Precoce/Gestion des Crises (Early Warning/Crisis Management System), told IRIN on Tuesday that “the situation is still critical because the state had asked (its international partners) for about 60,000 mt but since its appeal only about 10,000 mt have been received”.
He said the food deficit had caused population movements since December in 20 of Niger’s
36 ‘arrondissements’(counties), although the number of internally displaced people was still unknown.
[See separate story titled ‘NIGER: Food deficit still critical’]
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
