Crisis looms in drought-stricken Niger

The video by Al-Jazeera above is from their archives dated November 2008. But the situation in Niger today appears to be heading to a situation that may be worse than even the 2005 food shortage.

With poor rainfall, crop failure and exhausted food reserves across Niger and four months to go until the next harvest, there are mounting fears of a food crisis similar to the one of 2005 that affected thousands of children.

Africa's Sahel region is lurching towards a food crisis which the world has only weeks left to avert. Worsening conditions in the semi-arid belt which stretches across the southern Sahara - have seen malnutrition rates soar as families struggle to find enough food to eat.

It is now the start of the "lean season", the annual battle to survive from the end of one year's food stocks to the start of a new harvest. Baraka has brought her 13-month-old son, Abdul, to the health centre in Guidimouni. At 5.5 kg, he is acutely malnourished. He is also suffering from malaria. Abdul is one of the many children expected to need treatment for malnutrition in the coming months.

Even if more aid is pledged right now, the obstacles in getting succour to the most vulnerable and remote communities on the planet mean hundreds of thousands of children in Niger and Chad are already facing life-threatening hunger.

Aid workers say that any response now is already late because it takes some three months to get food to those that need it - by which time it will already be too later for some. But they say there is still time to reverse the situation before it becomes a more widespread disaster.

The presence of medical volunteers on the ground in Niger and a new government following the overthrow of a president who exacerbated the last crisis has meant that the local response has been far more pro-active than in 2005. But Niger is one of the world's poorest countries and outside resources are required to help it feed its starving.

Despite the fact that the United Nations and others now estimate a total 10 million people are at risk, the response from donors -- many of whom have already dug deep into their pockets this year for the Haiti earthquake - has been slow.

The UN already expects to treat 859,000 under-fives in the Sahel this season for severe malnutrition, the point at which a child faces an increased risk of disease or death.

(Source: BBC, UNICEF)