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Although the term 'natural disaster' applies to the December 2004
tsunami, the images of huge devastation that were televised after the
tragedy probably seemed a good deal less 'natural' to us than those of
starving African children we saw seven months later, from Niger. The
tsunami was perceived as so 'un-natural' that it provoked an immediate,
unprecedented international outpouring of sympathy. It took many
months, by contrast, for the story of a new famine in the Sahel to make
headlines. This book endeavors to shed light on a multifaceted crisis.
278pp Jul 2009
| Paperback | | 9781850659549 | | £17.95 | | Buy Now |
Although the term 'natural disaster' applies to the December 2004
tsunami, the images of huge devastation that were televised after the
tragedy probably seemed a good deal less 'natural' to us than those of
starving African children we saw seven months later, from Niger. The
tsunami was perceived as so 'un-natural' that it provoked an immediate,
unprecedented international outpouring of sympathy. It took many
months, by contrast, for the story of a new famine in the Sahel to make
headlines. From the outset its causes were apparent in media
coverage-droughts and locust invasions have always seemed the everyday
lot of people living in this region. The link between the crisis and
its natural causes was so self-evident that the first news reports
tended to omit the point that, in reality, drought and the locust
invasion had overtaken the Sahel region a year earlier. Nevertheless it
became Medecins Sans Frontieres' aim to see it acknowledged-not in the
press, but among those institutions responsible for food security in
Niger-that the deaths of tens of thousands of children as a result of
malnutrition would not be considered 'natural' phenomenon, still less a
normal one. For this reason the 2005 crisis was a unique experience for
the humanitarian organization. MSF treated more than 60,000 children
suffering from severe malnutrition-one of the most ambitious operations
in its history. It also found itself embroiled in controversy among the
various national and international actors involved in managing the
crisis in Niger over the summer of 2005. At the very moment MSF was
straining to mobilise other actors to intervene in what it judged to be
an emergency situation, the NGO was undergoing heated argument and
intense inquiry as to the exact nature of the situation it was
attempting to manage. Public, operational involvement of this kind -
outside the conflict zones where MSF traditionally and typically
intervenes, moreover - called for some form of reflection. This book
makes no claim whatsoever to be comprehensive, or to provide a final,
definitive version of 'the truth' with respect to the 2005 famine in
Niger. Instead the contributors endeavor to shed new light on a
multifaceted crisis.
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