World ignoring food crisis says Oxfam

The international community must wake up and stop an already bad food crisis in Mali spiralling out of control, British-based aid agency Oxfam said on Wednesday. But government officials shrugged off comparisons with neighbouring Niger and said they were merely faced with a particularly severe lean season. In a statement, Oxfam urged donors to stump up much-needed cash to help the estimated 1.1 million hungry people in Mali and avoid a last-minute rush to save lives. "Donors have a window of opportunity. They can help to avert a major food crisis in Mali, but they must act now," said Natasha Kofoworola Quist, Oxfam Great Britain's Regional Director for West Africa. Oxfam likened the food crisis in Mali to that of West African neighbour Niger, where media images of emaciated children have suddenly pricked consciences and increased donor contributions to an appeal that was launched months ago. But a senior Malian government official, while admitting that Mali had problems with food supplies, told IRIN the situation in the two Sahelian countries were not on the same scale. "It is not the same situation as in Niger. Mali is going through a particularly difficult year this year after last year's locust invasions but we are not in the same position as Niger," Lansry Nana Yaya Haidara, one of the government's food commissioners, said. However, she did repeat an appeal to the international community to help Mali replenish US $10 million worth of emptied food stocks. Vast tracts of northern Mali lie - like Niger - in the arid Sahelian belt where sparse populations eke out a precarious existence on the fringes of the Sahara Desert that stretches from Mauritania in the west to Chad in the east. Life is always difficult in this part of the world, but last year a plague of locusts - the worst seen for 15 years - swept through West Africa, stripping fields and vegetation. Aid workers have singled out the area north of the 14th parallel as being worst hit in Mali. This includes areas of hardship around Kayes in the west, Mopti, Timbuktu and Gao on the Niger river, and Kidal in the remote and bandit-ridden Adrar des Iforras hills of the northeast. According to Haidara, food shortages are an annual problem in these regions, where every year farmers endure a lean season as food stocks run low before the September harvest. Aid workers on the ground have expressed exasperation with the debate over whether the country was close to crisis and what constituted famine. They said the key fact was that people were suffering. "I have seen women and children weak with hunger. In my opinion there are pockets of famine here in Mali around Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal - it's terrible," said Mohamed Ould Mahmoud, Oxfam's country director in Mali. The UN World Food Programme appealed last December for $7.4 million, but up to July only 14 percent of that money had been pledged by donors. However, WFP officials said that media interest and stark images of severely malnourished babies in Niger seemed to be having a knock-on effect on donor interest in Mali. "Just in the last few days we have received a number of donations so that now we have 33 percent of the aid we requested," said Michel Laguesse, the deputy director for WFP in Mali.