Meskel Square: From Gonder to Niger

More on the difficulty of getting press coverage for starving African children...

Meskel Square: From Gonder to Niger: "That wasn't the only similarity between the two scenes. Half way through a BBC report on the Niger crisis, a worker for Save the Children UK appeared in front of the camera talking about how 'undramatic' the whole situation was. 'There is no war in Niger, no rebel groups, no despots, no problems getting the aid in, it is just poverty,' said Toby Porter, Save the Children’s Director of Emergencies in a press release. 'And kids are starving to death. It is simply because so many people in Niger are desperately poor, so many people living below the poverty line that a small shock creates a humanitarian disaster."...

And it is not just the "western world" that has grown hardened and uninterested. The Addis-based papers here hardly ever write about the ongoing nutrition crisis (up to 500,000 Ethiopian children die every year from preventable causes but apparently that is not a story). The last time I wrote about malnutrition on this website, I got loads of complaints from Ethiopian readers accusing me of trying to "ruin the image of the country". Someone else said "all you can think of covering is the same old recycled stories...". Which is actually close to the point that I am making. These stories of dying children are getting "old" and "recycled". And we are all getting used to them.

UPDATE: Save The Children UK has set up a special Niger Food Crisis appeal page.