Khaltouma Abakar Issa is a 70-year-old woman with four children and four grandchildren. She has lived in the Chadian village of Toula – in the western Kanem region – all her life. President of the women’s association in Toula, she spoke with IRIN about how the population struggles to find enough to eat in this region where one in five children under five suffers acute malnutrition.
“Life is very difficult here. The biggest problem the women face is that their children are hungry all the time. There is nothing to eat and it makes the babies sick.
“Every day we eat a millet-based cake. We have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We prepare it with [okra] sauce but the sauce is thick and tasteless and we get tired of eating it all the time. There are no fresh vegetables here to make a good sauce.
“If we were healthy I would not want to eat it. But it is all we can find. It fills your stomach so you do not feel hungry, but that’s it. It does not help the children to grow and become strong.
“It has always been a hard place to live, even when I was a little girl. But I remember it was not so bad then. There were more trees and it rained a lot – people could plant things.
“It is hotter these days and there are more sandstorms, and pasture is harder to find. We had more animals when I was younger; now if a family has a few cows they are classed as rich. Sometimes we get a little bit of dried meat and milk, but it has to be a special occasion.
“After the rainy season we can still grow things like tomatoes, but just for a few months. [During much of the year] the soil is too dry and we cannot afford to waste our water. Sometimes if someone goes to the market in Mao [Kanem regional capital, about 100km away], we can buy things like dates or dried tomatoes.
“The mothers are not well-nourished which means that the babies cannot get enough food. We need to help the mothers to keep producing milk. [Women] usually finish about 18 months with breastfeeding and then the baby has to go straight to food. But if there is nothing to replace the milk then the baby does not stay at a healthy weight.
“The worst thing for the mothers here is when the children cry. It is hard for me too as a grandmother when I see that they are hungry. We feel so much pain for them – when they look at you wanting to eat something.”
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“Life is very difficult here. The biggest problem the women face is that their children are hungry all the time. There is nothing to eat and it makes the babies sick.
“Every day we eat a millet-based cake. We have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We prepare it with [okra] sauce but the sauce is thick and tasteless and we get tired of eating it all the time. There are no fresh vegetables here to make a good sauce.
“If we were healthy I would not want to eat it. But it is all we can find. It fills your stomach so you do not feel hungry, but that’s it. It does not help the children to grow and become strong.
“It has always been a hard place to live, even when I was a little girl. But I remember it was not so bad then. There were more trees and it rained a lot – people could plant things.
“It is hotter these days and there are more sandstorms, and pasture is harder to find. We had more animals when I was younger; now if a family has a few cows they are classed as rich. Sometimes we get a little bit of dried meat and milk, but it has to be a special occasion.
“After the rainy season we can still grow things like tomatoes, but just for a few months. [During much of the year] the soil is too dry and we cannot afford to waste our water. Sometimes if someone goes to the market in Mao [Kanem regional capital, about 100km away], we can buy things like dates or dried tomatoes.
“The mothers are not well-nourished which means that the babies cannot get enough food. We need to help the mothers to keep producing milk. [Women] usually finish about 18 months with breastfeeding and then the baby has to go straight to food. But if there is nothing to replace the milk then the baby does not stay at a healthy weight.
“The worst thing for the mothers here is when the children cry. It is hard for me too as a grandmother when I see that they are hungry. We feel so much pain for them – when they look at you wanting to eat something.”
ch/np
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
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