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tarving women and children
.
look for cattle pellets ,
dropped by plane, to use for
human food in one of· the worst
droughts since biblical times. The
frightful drought is afflicting an esti–
mated 25 to 30 million people living
in six nations of French-speaking
West Africa. Of that number, some
ten million are already weakened by
hunger and malnutrition, and many
of them f ace death unless aid
comes quickly. '
Six nations are involved: Chad,
Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal
and"Upper Volta. Of these, Niger is
by far the worst' off. The d'i'ought in
the Sahel, as the French call these
.·
lands on the southern rim of the
Sahara, began five years ago. lt be–
carne critica! only this year as water
wells began to dry up.
The searing drought has wiped
out half of the livestock in most of
the affected countries. Addeke H.
Boerma, Dutch director of the
United Nations Food and Agricul–
tura! Organiz()tion (FAO) states
that "in some areas there now ap–
pea rs serious risk of im.minent
human famine and virtual extinction
of herds vital to nomad popu-
lations."
...
- According to another FAO offi–
cial, it would take· " a mínimum of
five years to rebuild the area's
~ ~
A
t
•
economy to the point it was at two
years ago, assuming even that the
crisis were to end tomorrow. " Even
before the drought began, these six
nattons were 'among the world's
least developed.
Aid Too late?
The United Nations Food and
Agric~ltural
Organization, the U. S.
,.Agency for lnternational Devel–
opment (AID) and various other
agencies have mounted a vast inter–
national relief effort to get
food
into
the drought-stricken area. The
United States has greatly increased
its
n~rmal
annual aid to the area,
providing some 156,000 tons of
-