drought

The current food crisis in Niger is likely to escalate into a full-scale humanitarian emergency if urgent action is not taken, international agency Oxfam warned today. Already, 1.9 million people are at severe risk, and by April, this number could rise to 3.5 million people if help doesn’t come now, according to the National Early Warning System.

“I used to be able to harvest 100 bundles of millet from my field."

According to a recent field study conducted in communities in western and eastern Niger, between 70 and 90 per cent of people estimate their food stocks will run out before the next harvest, creating an imminent ‘hunger gap’.

Humanitarian actors are concerned by the early depletion of food reserves of many Nigerien families and warn of the risk of aggravation of the food and nutrition crisis if the aid response is not rapidly reinforced.

Some 13 million people are at severe risk from a food crisis which is set to escalate into a full scale humanitarian emergency in the Sahel region of West and Central Africa if urgent action is not taken.

Musician Baaba Maal visited Mauritania where a food crisis now affects one in four people across the country. Oxfam is calling for urgent interventions to avoid the worst over the coming months, as well as long-term investments to strengthen the resilience of populations.

Oxfam today welcomed a joint statement made by UN agencies, the European Union and USAID issuing a concerted call for action to meet the humanitarian needs of over 11 million people in the

Estimates of people in need of assistance in the Sahel increases to over 11 million people, as agency warns humanitarian efforts need to be stepped up in the coming weeks.

The FSNAU has announced that the famine status in Somalia has ended.

More than 13 million people are still affected by the crisis in the Horn of Africa.