MARADI, Niger — The frail baby boy she cradles has arms no thicker than her finger. His belly has hollowed and his skin has sagged as his weight has dropped.
Rakiya Nassirou weeps constantly over her son, wondering what is happening to him and whether God is angry with her. But 6-month-old Rabiou is not her only worry. Another boy, 3-year-old Moussa, is with her at this feeding station run by Doctors Without Borders. Nassirou left four more children and her sick husband back home in their village two weeks ago with no food.
The aid agencies now scrambling to save these children say it didn't have to be this way.
In the best of circumstances, they acknowledge, hunger shadows Niger and its neighbors along the southern edge of the Sahara desert. Malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and other ills kill one in four children before the age of 5.
But last fall, things got much worse. The rains didn't come. Then the locusts, the worst infestation in 15 years, arrived.
A United Nations appeal in November for help for Niger was all but ignored. Another appeal in March for $16 million resulted in about $1 million in contributions. Even as world attention was focused on Africa last month at a Group of 8 summit of the world's richest nations, little happened. Niger was offered debt forgiveness, but nothing was done about the hunger issue.
The crisis underscores one of the long-standing problems faced by international relief agencies. It is much easier to raise money once starvation has set in and children are dying than to prod donors to head off a looming crisis.
Now, the World Food Program estimates 2.5 million of Niger's nearly 12 million people are at risk of hunger; 1.6 million of them need immediate help. And the crisis is spreading. An additional 1.5 million people in neighboring Mali, Mauritania and Burkino Faso need food aid.
Only recent television footage of starving children has started making a difference.
"We are going into the worst period of the year, in the coming four to five weeks, with the rainy period and diarrhea. And this is the last month before the harvest, meaning there are few food stocks and they are running very low," said Johanne Sekkenes, head of mission at Doctors Without Borders in Niamey, Niger's capital.
Doctors Without Borders is admitting nearly 1,300 children a week to its emergency feeding program in the Maradi region, 340 miles east of Niamey. The numbers are still rising.
