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Niger

GOAL emergency appeal for Niger: Latest news 2 Aug 2005

GOAL is one of the first NGOs to distribute food in the country which has been devastated by famine caused by drought and plagues of locusts.

  • GOAL started operating in Niger on the 24th July, 2005

  • GOAL chartered two cargo planes to carry 100,000 kg millet, 30 tons of pulses, 3 tons oil, 3 tons sugar and emergency medical supplies.

  • GOAL undewrtook a Family Distribution Programme in Abala - a town 5 hours north of the capital Niamey on the weekend of Saturday 30th July exaclty one week after arriving in Niger. The ration consisted of 100,000 kg millet, 30 tons of pulses, 3 tons oil and 3 tons sugar. It will feed 10,000 people for one month.

  • GOAL will continue a food distribution programme in Abala.

  • The President of Niger, Tandja Mamadou has visited GOALs programme in Abala.

  • In the north western town of Quallam, GOAL is undertaking more health and nutritional assessments of the local population with the intention of setting up further emergency programmes for children under five.

  • In Zinder in the east of the country, GOAL will wet up a supplementary feeding programme in partnership with Medicine Sans Frontier (MSF) which will ensure GOAL will feed a further 10,000 malnourished women and children.

More than 3.6 million people are facing severe food shortages in Niger. The west african state is the second poorest country in the world where one in four children under the age of five die each year from chronic poverty and this catastrophe will only serve to exacerbate an already devastating situation.