From: Yemane Natnael (yemane_natnael@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Jul 19 2008 - 19:05:00 EDT
Djibouti Facing Alarming Food Crisis
By Lisa Schlein
Geneva
18 July 2008
The
World Food Program says Djibouti is facing an alarming food and
nutrition crisis. The WFP is urgently appealing for $19 million to feed
150,000 of the country's most vulnerable people through next year. Lisa
Schlein reports for VOA from Geneva.
Djibouti is a tiny country in
the Horn of Africa. It is overshadowed by its much larger neighbors,
Ethiopia and Sudan, and suffers from the lack of media attention and
world recognition.
And, that, says the World Food Program's
Director in Geneva, Daly Belgasmi, makes life exceedingly difficult for
people in this extremely poor country.
"We are concerned in the
World Food Program about hundreds of millions of people we are
feeding....And, Djibouti because it is small and because of lack of
media coverage on Djibouti...the country has been forgotten," Belgasmi
said.
Djibouti ranks 148 on the United Nations Human
Development Index. Nearly three quarters of the country's population of
632,000 live in poverty and about 45 percent live in extreme poverty or
on less than one dollar a day.
The main source of income is from
the port and from its use as an army base by the United States and
France. The country cannot grow anything and must import all its food.
Belgasmi
says the current food crisis is having a strong impact on the health
and nutritional situation of the population. He says he has seen acute
cases of malnutrition, of anemia and eye infections.
"No water,
no shelter, no sanitation, no food and the people are moving because of
the food crisis from one rural area to Djibouti surrounding in the
suburban area...The situation is...alarming....the food security is
getting worse during the last 12 months. The entire Djiboutian
population has been strongly, strongly affected by the high cost of
food commodity," he said.
Belgasmi says the unemployment rate
is 60 percent. With the increased cost of living, largely due to
soaring food prices, he says most of the population is unable to make
ends meet.
He calls the situation devastating for Djibouti's poor, hungry, forgotten people.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-07-18-voa52.cfm
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