NO FAMINE HERE!

Niger leader 'ignorant' of hunger.

The UN has started a general distribution of food aid. Niger's opposition has condemned the president as "ignorant" after he said the people of Niger were "well-fed" in the midst of a food crisis. Mamadou Karijo of the CFD party told the BBC the government had failed to take early action and had harassed journalists who reported the hunger. President Mamadou Tanja has meanwhile said he accepted there were shortages of food but this was not a famine. Some 32,000 children need food aid soon or they could starve, the UN says.
"There is famine in Niger, President Mamadou Tanja is ignorant of the true situation in his country," Mr Karijo - of the Democratic Forces' Convention - said. He said the government's efforts to subsidise food prices and offer food for work schemes had failed. Mr Tanja sought to clarify his earlier remarks in a second BBC interview. He said a famine had a devastating effect on the nation, with huge numbers of people fleeing affected areas, setting up emergency camps and people dying every day. He said the current situation was not as serious as the food crises of the 1970s and 1980s.
Aid agencies agree that there is not a famine in Niger but say urgent action is required.
Some 15 children were dying each week of malnutrition in the southern region of Maradi in mid-July, before the arrival of a huge aid operation, doctors said. Mr Tanja accused the opposition of using the problems for political reasons and said United Nations agencies had used "false propaganda" in order to get increased funding from donors.
"It is only by deception that such agencies receive funding," he said. The World Food Programme denied that the scale of the problems had been exaggerated. "We have not spoken about famine but about pockets of severe malnutrition," WFP spokesman Greg Barrow told the BBC.
On Monday, the WFP started the general distribution of food in parts of southern Niger. Until now, it has been giving out food in schools or food for work schemes. The UN estimates that up to three million of Niger's 12 million population are suffering food shortages.
On Thursday, the International Food Policy Research Institute published a report saying that African governments could do more to stop people suffering hunger. It said more roads and better information and communications were needed to reduce the malnutrition rate, which had remained at 35% of the population since the 1970s.

BBC NEWS REPORT.