MAURITANIA: "As soon as my children get better I will go back to the village"

Photo: Anne Isabelle Leclercq/IRIN

Adama Ndiaye brought her 21-month-old twin daughters and her one-month-old son, who all suffer malnutrition, to the Dar Naim health centre in Nouakchott

NOUAKCHOTT, 4 November 2009 (IRIN) - Adama Ndiaye, 20, is originally from the Kaédi region in the south of Mauritania – one of the regions worst affected by malnutrition. After losing her first two children she decided to go to the capital Nouakchott to care for her twins and her youngest child.

"My twins are [21 months] and my baby is one month old. I had two children before; the first died at one year and the other lived a month and a half. They were ill and had fever. They refused to breastfeed and then they passed away [due to complications linked to malnutrition].

"My husband is a farmer [near Kaédi] and he grows millet and peanuts. Sometimes we have food but at other times birds eat the seeds and nothing grows. In our region the majority of people eat only once a day, myself included.

"As I wasn’t eating much I didn’t have enough milk for the twins. [Shortly after they were born] the girls became ill so I decided to come to Nouakchott to look after them. I took them to Dar Naim [a health centre in a Nouakchott suburb managed by the State with support from aid agencies and donors including the UN Children’s Fund] each day.

"After six months my twins had recovered so I went back to my husband. I then became pregnant again. But my twins started to get sick again so I returned to Nouakchott. I’ve been here for five months now staying with [relatives]. I come to the centre nearly every day. The twins get porridge made from rice, fish and vegetables and there’s [baby] milk for the little one.

"As soon as my children get better I will go back to the village. I came here just to care for them but I don’t want to stay. I want to go home. My husband and I will get by with the kids.”

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