Niger regarded by the UN as having the world’s worst poverty and human development was recently hit with the worst drought people had witnessed for more than 20 years. No rainfalls for 4 consecutive years resulted in very little harvest. With the added tragedy of millions of locust insects invading the entire country destroying every crop that survived the drought millions of people were left with a desperate future.
More than 3.5 million people were at risk of starvation if the world community did not react quickly. The head of the UN emergency relief Jan Egeland said that 150 000 children would die very soon if no aid pours into the country.
Food prices skyrocketed at an incredible rate making it impossible for two-thirds of the population – who live on less than a 50p a day – to buy food for their families. People were resorting to eating leaves and plants because they had nothing else to eat.
Human Appeal In Niger
Human Appeal International dispatched our teams from Sudan who have extensive experience in dealing with emergency cases in places such as Darfur and Kassla. Within days of the disaster HAI established a field hospital to support the weak and vulnerable the women children and the elderly. Providing medical aid and assessing the nutritional needs especially in children under the age of five.
Human Appeal International established 4 feeding centres across the districts of Babool Babalwa and Bambakee: providing food to over 30 000 malnourished children. Our staff referred the severely malnourished to the field hospital for further treatment.
The Human Appeal International field hospital has the capacity to treat 100 children at a time and in 2005 alone treated 277 severely malnourished children. The hospital has 2 maternity wards which have treated 757 women in dealing with childbirth related difficulties. Currently the only medical facility available for the whole region is the Human Appeal International hospital. We are committed to working to help the people of Niger in the long term. Through the feeding centres and the medical facility we’ll continue to provide food and medical care until they can support themselves.
Affiliates
Human Appeal International is working with the following international aid agencies to provide for the people of Niger: - UNICEF provided HAI with nutritional meals for children.
- UN WFP provided food to HAI feeding centres
- WHO visited HAI hospital in Kambirgy district to assess medical relief and signed an agreement to provide medicine.
- MSF (Sweden) and MSF (Belguim) approved medication and essential supplies after they visited the HAI field hospital.
