A million refugees urgently need shelter, food and water
Burkina Faso: The food crisis in pictures
According to the UN, more than 18 million people in the Sahel region of West and Central Africa are in urgent need of humanitarian aid. Low and erratic rains have caused poor food harvests and water shortages: the risk of a food crisis in the region is imminent. Oxfam is gearing up its response: we hope to reach 1.8 million people across 7 countries in the region.
These photos, taken in Burkina Faso in June 2012, show the alarming situation in the Sahel region. Many families are forced to survive on just one meal per day and, in extreme cases, one every other day. More than a million children suffer from malnutrition. And one of the worst periods for the region is about to start: next harvests start in October but many burns are already completely empty.
For more information on this crisis and how Oxfam is working in the region, please visit our Sahel food crisis web page.
Photos: Pablo Tosco/ Oxfam
Millions of families of the Sahel live from the land. In a year of rainfall, crop and livestock on a small scale allow them to survive until next season. In a drought year, the barns are emptied without remedy in the first months. This is the story of 2012 in the Sahel.
Most vulnerable families are forced to reduce their diet to a minimum: three meals a day becomes two, or two becomes one, or even in the most extreme cases one meal per day passes to one every two days. The only dish is the "to", a stew made of water and grain flour that is extended with leaves from wild trees and plants.
Children are major victims of food crisis. About one million of them across the Sahel suffer from malnutrition, as a result of insufficient food and little variety. In many schools, like this one in Konean (Burkina Faso), the only children who get lunch are those who can bring it from home.
Before sowing, each Sahel peasant family carves hundreds of acres at the old style of bowing down and sticking the hoe. A plow and two oxen are only available to wealthy farmers. Compost is a rarity, the tractor a dream and the artificial irrigation science fiction.
In Burkina Faso, tens of thousands of small farmers have left the field to jump to the search for gold, which they say make a better life because they are no more weather dependent. This year artisanal gold mines have multiplied. People live and work in unsafe and unhealthy conditions. One third of the population living there are children.
In Burkina Faso, Oxfam is helping 200,000 vulnerable people to survive during the months of hunger. Among other actions, Oxfam has distributed cash to enable families to eat during the time of planting, as well as seeds, tools, livestock feed, etc. The aim is to prevent these families to leave the field for an uncertain future.
The response to the emergency is not sufficient because it does not prevent to play again in a few years. Governments and NGOs should support systems that in a medium and long term strengthen the capacity of people to overcome years of poor rains. Security barns, such as those installed in the village of Rambo (Burkina Faso) are a first line of defense (photo: Alidou Sawadogo, president of the Association Aidons l'Afrique Ensemble).
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