We’ve been worried that this would be a silent emergency where few people knew or cared about children in Niger, but this week alone people have been in touch from Austalia, Korea, Italy, Spain, Canada and the UK – it’s great that this crisis is making it onto the world’s media agenda.
7.7 million people are going hungry. 127,000 children under five years old have been admitted to hospital for malnutrition-related problems since the start of the year. That’s like having a city the size of Oxford full of no one but starving babies and toddlers. It’s terrifying.
Nassirou’s death was one of the last tragic things I witnessed in Niger before I left at the end of my two month deployment as communications officer. Sadly, the crisis in Niger is still deteriorating.
A right, a request and a responsibility — yet still too often ignored. Packed in a room at the Overseas Development Institute, the Humanitarian Practice Network and Save the Children hosted a vital debate on Education in Emergencies. Last year, over 2 million children were caught up in emergencies – floods, earthquakes, cyclones, conflict and drought. Their classrooms destroyed, teachers killed or fled, the year unfinished, their personal development interrupted.
It’s hard to believe that 6 months have passed since the earthquake in Haiti. Hard for a variety of reasons. Firstly, (apart from the sudden flurry of media attention inspired by the passing of an arbitrary period of time: 6 months), the collective suffering felt by Haitian people and the hard work of organisations like Save the Children have fallen off the radar of international media interest.
Among the chaos and visible memories of the tragic events that will forever scar the Haitian people, life goes on. The true spirit of the Haitian people shines through.
We estimate that the lives of more than two million children were affected by emergencies last year — anything from cyclones, floods and earthquakes, to conflict and fragility. In every emergency, children tell us that what they most want — alongside medicines, water, food and shelter—is to get back to school. Yet, there are many diverging views about the importance education in emergencies. That’s why we’re organizing an event to have a Vital Debate on Education in Emergencies.
I arrived this morning in Sange, Democratic Republic of Congo, a town of 45,000 people which was recently hit by a new disaster. A fuel tanker exploded killing 238 people and seriously injuring at least a hundred more. Save the Children works in Sange with the most vulnerable children, including those affected by the ongoing conflicts.
This is my last blog post from the region. Global media coverage of the crisis is fading, threatening to make people forget about the needs of children and families here, but we will not forget them. In the weeks and months to come we will continue to support vulnerable children and families so that they can rebuild their homes, re-start their businesses and get on with their lives. We will also work with communities to help them build lasting peace.
“Armed people came to the school and took away our computers and furniture. I saw the school burning and I cried. I shouted at them: ‘You don’t have to do it,’ but they said that they would burn our homes and kill us,” eight-year-old Marat explains, as he mimes how the men aimed their guns.
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