More than 3.8 million face hunger in Niger -UNICEF

NIAMEY, Aug 12 (Reuters) More than 3.8 million people in Niger, or nearly one in three inhabitants, risk running short of food before the next harvest comes in, the UN Children's Fund UNICEF said.

Millions of people face seasonal food shortages every year in West Africa's arid Sahel region, but the problem has been exacerbated by successive crop failures and a plague of locusts.

Of the 3.8 million people facing shortages this year, some 700,000 are children below the age of 5, UNICEF said in a statement yesterday.

UN aid agencies made a joint appeal for funds last month, saying they feared a repeat of last year's food crisis across the region when 3.6 million of Niger's 12.6 million people ran short of food, while many more went hungry in neighbouring Mali.

The agencies, some of whom were criticised for reacting too slowly to shortages in Niger last year, said by mid-July they had received only 51 percent of the 3 million needed this year to tackle the food crisis in the Sahel.

After a plague of locusts and poor 2004 harvest, many families ran up large debts, rendering them less able to buy in food in the lean season, aid workers say.

In addition, some villages started running out of food in May, unseasonably early, and the next harvest will not be ready until October.

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