On November 20, 2018, the United Nations said hunger among children in West Africa’s Sahel had climbed to its highest level in a decade, driven by poor rains, conflict and high food prices.
UNICEF said more than 1.3 million children under five suffered from severe malnutrition in the six worst-hit countries in the semi-arid belt below the Sahara. That figure marked a 50 percent rise from 2017.
Marie-Pierre Poirier, UNICEF regional director for West and Central Africa, warned that severe acute malnutrition leaves children more exposed to disease. “When children suffer from severe acute malnutrition, they are more vulnerable to illnesses such as malaria and waterborne diseases,” she said in a statement.
The agency said the crisis remained a recurring problem in a region where poverty is widespread and droughts return periodically. Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal were identified as the countries most affected in 2018.
The Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that 6 million people across the region did not have enough to eat during the lean season. Coumba Sow, the FAO’s regional coordinator for resilience, said pastoralist communities were among the hardest hit because poor rains left too little vegetation for grazing.
The Sahel has only one growing season, so a bad season can leave families exposed until the next harvest. Sow said climate shocks and conflict make that vulnerability worse, while global warming is making rainfall more erratic.
She added that the rains arrived late and then stopped for a prolonged period, causing many farmers to lose half their seeds. U.N. agencies and local governments were still assessing production levels for the new season at the time.
“We still hope that we will be able to get some good results in harvest, but it is too early to say,” Sow told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
