Food crisis in Niger – 2010 photo gallery

Irregular rains in 2009 led to a severe lack of pasture, water and a poor harvest in West Africa. Worst affected is Niger where 7.1 million people are at risk. In 2012 the Sahel region of West Africa is once again likely to face a serious food crisis if early and effective action is not taken.

Oxfam is distributing food and supplies to the poorest households, protecting livestock and buying weak livestock from herders at above market levels. Please donate now to help Oxfam's work on this crisis.

Men walking with their donkey carts loaded with cattle feed from Simiri to Niamey, a journey of two nights. They will sell each cart load of feed for the equivalent of half a bag of maize, enough to feed their families for less than a week. On their return they will forage for more and make another trip until it runs out. "Aren't there animals in Simiri? Yes, but there's no money to buy the feed."
Aissa Hassan (13) drawing water from the village well in Niamey.
Aerial view over Maradi province, Niger.
Traders buying and selling at a cattle market near Kundumawa, Maradi Province. Due to a shortage of animal feed many animals are undernourished and their capital value is quickly decreasing.
Herders migrating in search of pasture for their animals along the road from Maradi to Dakoro.
Herders drawing water from deep wells for their cattle in Amulesse near Dakoro. Water levels are low and people hope the rains will soon arrive. Hassanne Baka, director of Aren, Oxfam's partner in the region, says: "If we don't get the intervention we need we will lose 80% of the animals and there will be a huge movement of people and that means deaths."
In Kakassi, water in the village pump has run dry so the women and children come to the middle of the dry river bed every day and dig for water. "We don't have anywhere to store water in the village so we come every day to find water for all our needs: cooking, cleaning and drinking. We all come together and talk and joke with each other. The river will flow again during the next rainy season. All our lives are controlled by the rainy season."
The villagers of Timbouloulag have been forced by the food shortage to supplement their diet with leaves collected from the bush. The leaves are soaked and cooked for three hours to break the strong fibres and pounded to a flour like consistency before eating.
"Sometimes if I collect enough leaves I take them to the market to sell and buy a small amount of maize with the money," says Issibit Imissawa, one of the villagers, as she cookes the leaves. "But people don't always want to buy. I really don't know what we're going to do."
Children sharing a meal of cooked bush leaves in Timbouloulag.