* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
There is much talk these days of reaching the unreached. But as I drive with UNICEF colleagues through the remote Hodh Gharbi scrubland in Mauritania, in north-west Africa’s Sahel region, there is little sign of any outside effort making its way here where the whimpers and restlessness – the signs of hunger – haunt the mothers in one scattered home after another.
Each year, the period between the rains and the new harvest brings a ‘lean season’ when mothers struggle to feed their children. But last year there was no rain. This year’s lean season has come three months early. Without rain, the pasture for livestock disappears; the goats produce less milk for the children and the few crops only half grow. Families compete with birds and locusts for what crops manage to survive. Family members, often men and older boys, are already leaving to search for better pastoral land or piecemeal work.
UNICEF estimates that across the eight countries of the Sahel, more than a million children are at risk of severe malnutrition, which can quickly lead to death if left untreated. The hope of the government here and humanitarian agencies is to respond now and thus avoid the horrific pictures of mass starvation that could come if nothing is done.
Yet it is hard to keep Africa on the relief agenda nowadays, and part of me bristles at the constant need to compare and compete between African emergencies. Will the Sahel crisis be as bad as last year’s famine in the Horn of Africa? How accurate are the numbers? Where are the images of starving children?
Mauritania, twice the size of France, is one of the world’s least populated countries, with 3.4 million people speckling the huge region. We drive 870 km from Mauritania’s capital of Nouakchott to the distant town of Aioun el Atrouss in the Hodh Gharbi region which is mainly home to pastoral nomads. Carcasses of dead animals line the road. The potential loss of livestock - an estimated one million camels, one million cows and more than 15 million goats and sheep live here – would be devastating.
Our drive leads us to signs of attempts to reach remote communities. Dr Ahmed Ould Aida, a food security and nutrition joint programme coordinator, takes us to a grain bank. It is part of a new scheme involving four UN agencies – UNICEF, the World Food Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization. When people have extra grain, they bring it to the community village storage centre and sell it for the market price, thus avoiding a fortune spent on transport to a distant buyer. It also means some of the grain stays within the community, as a backup in the lean season.
Dr Ould Aida next takes us to the local health centre, which, with UNICEF help, is stocked with vaccines, essential medicines and therapeutic food to treat severe malnutrition. Nutrition centres in many villages are now stocked with corn soya blend, oil and sugar, supplied by WFP; mothers can bring moderately malnourished children to be weighed and take home supplies. With extensive community education, exclusive breastfeeding, a critical first line defence for young infants, has shot up to almost 85 per cent in the region. But with no rain and an early lean season, these signs of nascent resilience are not enough. Families are running out of food.
“There is no doubt the investments in development have paid off, but today, we have an emergency and local communities cannot survive without more help,” Dr Aida explains.
Following Dr Aida, we stop at the mud-brick home of 12-old-girl peering out from the doorway. Her stickly frame is apparent under her colourful traditional mulafa dress. If we were in the West, I would have thought she was anorexic; but here this is not a teenage eating disorder. Dr Aida speaks to the mother and makes a note to ensure the clinic nurse, more than 7 km away, visits them.
Dr Aida takes us to the tented home of a mother with malnourished twins who says her husband has left in search of work. The grandmother talks in anger as her worn wrinkled hands mix a bowl of millet. “Look at the people, even the adults are feeble…… it is not just the children but all of us who suffer from hunger and no food,” she says. They are forced to rely on neighbours for scratches of a meal.
We are joined by Khadetou Mint Beydar, one of 500 community health volunteers who have been trained to identify and treat malnourished children at home with therapeutic food. Beydar says a few cases of malnutrition at this time of year are not uncommon, but this year there are many.
Lucia Elmi, UNICEF Mauritania Representative, says the immediate challenges are threefold - logistics, security and human capacity. The country needs at least US$3.2 million to prepare for a large-scale response to acute malnutrition as well as to invest in health, water and sanitation services. More will be needed for the recovery and to sustain the efforts.
Adding to the stress of long distances and reaching isolated communities, humanitarian agencies may soon be challenged where they can go. Since the end of January, more than 10,000 people have crossed from Mali into Mauritania, fleeing renewed conflict between government forces and nomadic Tuareg fighting for independence. Analysts warn of a potential escalation of conflict as a fallout of the Libyan crisis and an influx of small arms and returning migrant workers.
“There is no doubt it will be difficult to reach children in a country this large and with populations so spread out,” says Elmi. “But if our responsibility and mandate is to make sure every child counts, then it is critical we respond now, especially to reach the poorest and most vulnerable, wherever they are.”
Shantha Bloemen is Chief of Communications for UNICEF in Johannesburg.
