I want her to get strong and gain weight and to go home healthy

Mariama is 30 and from Salaha El Moussa. On 27 April 2010, her 18-month-old baby, Salaha, was referred to the Aguié stabilisation unit that Save the Children supports, after a nutrition screening took place in her village. Salaha’s put on 1.3kg since coming to the unit, where severely malnourished children are fed with highly nutritious milk and given medicine to treat any complications. Mariama lost three children before their second birthdays and was worried she’d lose Salaha too.

Mariama's story

“I’ve given birth to eight children but three have died. They all died before they reached two. The first child died when she was one year old, fourteen years ago. The next one died twelve years ago and the third one died ten years ago. Two of them died from fever and diarrhoea and one died from convulsions. My living children are nine, seven, five and two, and Salaha is 18 months old.

“We’ve been here for two weeks now. Salaha was 6lbs 2oz then. Now [11 May] she’s 8lbs 8oz. She got ill, then she got better again, then she’d get ill again. She had a fever. I gave her millet but I needed to give her milk and we didn’t have any milk. I had no money to buy any. In my village we’ve had two years of bad harvests. This year it’s much worse than normal. All the men have gone to Nigeria to look for work to earn some money. They left just after the last harvest [November 2009].

“There are other malnourished children in my village. There were fifteen children from my village that were referred to the clinic after they’d been screened. My child was the only one who had to be taken to the stabilisation unit.

A desperate situation

“This isn’t normal. Normally the food shortage is just in May and June. This year it’s too long. It’s been since February. We have no food. If we want food we have to pay for it. Since February we’ve had to sell our goats – more than five of them. When it’s not a food crisis like now we earn 20,000 CFA [about £26] for a goat but now it’s only 10,000 CFA and the millet is more expensive now. Mariama continued.

“I try to make meals for my children but I can’t manage it every day. Sometimes we go three days without a meal. I worry about the children I’ve had to leave at home, I worry they have no food. They’re with my husband’s other two wives. His first wife has five children and his second wife has nine children. I’m his third wife.

“I remember 2005, I remember it being bad and having to go a week without food. My children were malnourished but I did a food-for-work scheme to feed my children. I think, though, that my children have been affected because of being malnourished. Even now they get ill more often.

“When I see my child sick like this it makes me feel very bad. Before the screening I was very worried about my child. I’d already taken her to the health post more than seven times. I was worried that my child would get so ill she would die like the others.

“I want her to get strong and gain weight and to go home healthy. I want there to be rain and food because otherwise I’m worried about the situation when I go home because we have no food there.”

How has this happened?

Poor, erratic rainfall since last year in Niger has meant crops have failed on a grand scale and livestock have died. Imported food is available in the region, unlike during the food crisis in 2005, but soaring costs have made it impossible for the people who need it most to get their hands on any – costs are 20% higher than recent years.

Things are usually tough for people in Niger at this time of year but the shortages became apparent months earlier this year. The hunger families suffer will be more severe and will last longer, and more people will become malnourished.

More than half the population have no food reserves left. They’re resorting to desperate measures that will create more problems in the long term – like only eating once a day, eating food meant for animals, selling household items they need, taking children out of school, selling off livestock at reduced rates and moving to urban areas in search of work.

If the humanitarian response isn’t quick and substantial 378,000 children under five are likely to suffer severe malnutrition and 1,200,000 from moderate malnutrition.

Niger already has one of the world’s highest mortality rates among young children – one in six children don’t live to see their fifth birthday. Before the current food crisis 43% of children in Niger under the age of five were already chronically malnourished.

Our campaign to save children’s lives.

In Niger we train community workers to identify and refer malnourished children in their areas to the centres and follow up on the children after they’ve been treated.
We also carry out awareness-raising sessions for mothers about good breast-feeding practices, warning signs of malnutrition and general good health and hygiene to help improve their children’s health.
In order to avoid families resorting to harmful coping strategies we implement a Food Security Programme that targets the most vulnerable households in the community with cash for training, so they can purchase food.

Saving lives on an even greater scale requires action from governments. Save the Children’s global campaign EVERY ONE wants urgent action to prevent children dying from preventable conditions. In order to achieve our goal, we will press the International Community and donors to invest in early warning systems and longer term development in Niger to tackle the root causes of the crisis in order to break this cycle of drought and hunger.

Find out more about Save the Children's response to the desperate food crisis in Niger