More funding is needed to avert a humanitarian disaster in
Africa's Sahel region where up to 14 million people are
suffering from food shortages, the international Red Cross said
on Tuesday. The emerging crisis in the desert area is
underfunded because early warnings are going unheeded, the
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
(IFRC) said. The UN estimates that as many as 23 million people
could be hit by the food crisis in Niger, Chad, Mali, Burkina
Faso, Mauritania and Senegal, spurred by poor harvests last
year. The Sahel belt is particularly sensitive to drought and
famine. In 2010 some 10 million people were affected by a severe
food crisis. "IFRC is urging donors to come to the aid of the
Sahel but also to invest in longer term resilience to break the
cycle of chronic food shortages in the region," a statement
said. Momodou Lamin Fye, who represents the IFRC in the Sahel,
has just returned from Mauritania. "I saw for myself how severe
the situation is," he told a journalists'