Mothers' hopeful travel to save kids
Source: Agencies |
April 23, 2012, Monday
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MOTHERS with hungry and malnourished children are traveling by any means they can to get to feeding sites and clinics in the Chadian desert, such as Dibinindji, where no roads exist and where it is sometimes too late to save their babies' lives.
Twenty-two children have died this year from malnutrition in another district in Chad's Sahel belt. Health and UN officials warn that more children will die if the international humanitarian assistance is not increased.
The inhabitants in this vast expanse of the Chadian desert eke an existence from subsistence farming in this unforgiving environment, and this year it has been especially unkind.
Outside the clinic, a mother arrives from the desert by donkey, leaves the animal with a dozen others under the shade of a tree that serves as a donkey parking lot, and walks toward the clinic, shielding the child under her yellow shawl from the harsh noontime sun.
"Halime Ali?" a nurse shouts out. A mother brings baby Halime to be weighed. She cries as she is lifted into the plastic weighing bucket, and again as she is lifted out by one arm.
Beban Behoutam Sylvestre, the chief doctor of the district of Mondo, said the center has registered 22 deaths since the beginning of the year. Admissions in the early months of this year tripled over admissions during the last half of 2011, he said.
"The children are brought to the center very late. Once they arrive at the center, it's already too late to treat them," he said. "Another reason that presents itself is the transportation conditions. When a child is sick they bring them on the back of a donkey or camel, or even a cart," and those modes of transport are not ideal for children with severe acute malnutrition.
UNICEF estimates that 127,000 children under the age of five in Chad will suffer from severe acute malnutrition this year. The hunger crisis extends across many countries including Niger, Mali, Mauritania and Burkina Faso, and the UN estimates 1 million children this year will require lifesaving treatment for severe acute malnutrition in the wider Sahel region.
"These numbers are quite staggering in my opinion. We really need to do something urgently because if we don't act now then we may take the chance of losing so many children who will die of malnutrition," said UNICEF's deputy representative to Chad, Dr Marcel Ouattara. He blamed climate change for Chad's hunger crisis.
The region has not yet recovered from the last drought two years ago, and many families lost their herds which means that they will not have assets to purchase food.
Twenty-two children have died this year from malnutrition in another district in Chad's Sahel belt. Health and UN officials warn that more children will die if the international humanitarian assistance is not increased.
The inhabitants in this vast expanse of the Chadian desert eke an existence from subsistence farming in this unforgiving environment, and this year it has been especially unkind.
Outside the clinic, a mother arrives from the desert by donkey, leaves the animal with a dozen others under the shade of a tree that serves as a donkey parking lot, and walks toward the clinic, shielding the child under her yellow shawl from the harsh noontime sun.
"Halime Ali?" a nurse shouts out. A mother brings baby Halime to be weighed. She cries as she is lifted into the plastic weighing bucket, and again as she is lifted out by one arm.
Beban Behoutam Sylvestre, the chief doctor of the district of Mondo, said the center has registered 22 deaths since the beginning of the year. Admissions in the early months of this year tripled over admissions during the last half of 2011, he said.
"The children are brought to the center very late. Once they arrive at the center, it's already too late to treat them," he said. "Another reason that presents itself is the transportation conditions. When a child is sick they bring them on the back of a donkey or camel, or even a cart," and those modes of transport are not ideal for children with severe acute malnutrition.
UNICEF estimates that 127,000 children under the age of five in Chad will suffer from severe acute malnutrition this year. The hunger crisis extends across many countries including Niger, Mali, Mauritania and Burkina Faso, and the UN estimates 1 million children this year will require lifesaving treatment for severe acute malnutrition in the wider Sahel region.
"These numbers are quite staggering in my opinion. We really need to do something urgently because if we don't act now then we may take the chance of losing so many children who will die of malnutrition," said UNICEF's deputy representative to Chad, Dr Marcel Ouattara. He blamed climate change for Chad's hunger crisis.
The region has not yet recovered from the last drought two years ago, and many families lost their herds which means that they will not have assets to purchase food.
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