Niger: starves while the world watches - 22 Jul 2005
"Children are starving to death in Niger," reports Miriam, one of our regular contributors on 24-7prayer's Talkback discussion boards. "Families are travelling across hundreds of miles of harsh desert in a desperate attempt to save their lives they search for help and a safe environment.
Niger, in West Africa, has been struggling with droughts and famine for many years, yet this has rarely been heard of in the Western media. One of the largest emergencies has been forgotten and neglected. I flicked channels last night to catch the headlines at the end of the 10 O’clock news, and was shocked and saddened to hear the words “Niger”, “famine” and “starvation” in the same sentence. I spent six months there during my gapyear, three years ago. I did see cases of malnourished infants then, but nothing on this scale. I remember holding a desperately thin child with rags just barely hanging from his bones. He was tiny and I guessed his age at 18months. I later found out he was, in fact, four years old. 3.5million people including hundreds of thousands of children are going hungry and many will die, quite needlessly. 
And why? The rains have come too late in this already stricken country, and despite aid agency predictions months ago that food would run out virtually nothing is being done about it and instead the Western World has been slow to respond. Too slow. The herds are lying dead in the wastelands, and the people are not far distant to this. Even those reaching help are too weak to eat, and your place in the queue may determine life or death according to this BBC report – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4695355.stm With the late rains have also come disease, and there is not much more these people or this country can take. Only a few people even have access to the little help that is available. Aid agencies need more help. It is as simple as that. More resources, more money, more people, more help. The government has declared an emergency. And this help needs to come now.
Niger, the second poorest nation in the world according to the UNDP report 2004, is landlocked and much of it is desert. Only 3% of the land can be farmed; so it is no wonder that around 90% of the peoples encounter a severe and daily struggle just to survive. In the 1970's it benefited from the discovery of Uranium and experienced a brief period of relative prosperity and growth. But the 1980's were hit hard by severe droughts and famine. Desertification has continued at an alarming rate since then. Last year a plague of locusts destroyed most of the harvest. This left almost nothing to fall back on this year, for those already struggling. 
Instead in the West we find ourselves so “privileged”, we have clothes on our backs, food to eat, good houses to live in and access to a decent education. That's not to say, of course, that we don't have problems. The inner cities suffer from high crime rates, unemployment and other social issues. But multiply that by any multiple of 50 or a 100 you care to, throw in a good handful of corruption, drought, disease and a dollop of slavery and - you have an open window into the lives of some African nations."So what can we do? We can pray although that seems weak when the situation is so overwhelming, it is the only thing, surely something that we can do.
Pray Ø For those who are suffering and those who are mourning
Ø For the western world to wake up and help in this particular instance
Ø For the aid agencies on the ground – wisdom, strength, energy and resources
Ø For the government of Niger
Ø For the long term problems
See also http://www.24-7prayer.com/ow/country.php?country_id=89 Operation World – Niger for more information as well as information on the church and mission there.
Prayer to Make Poverty History - http://www.cafod.org.uk/resources/worship/prayers/mph_prayer