The Stricken Six

Tumbling from the belly of the DC-4 streaking only 15 feet above Chad's sandy desert came bags of sorghum that burst on impact like tiny bombs. Hungry nomads scrambled for the grain, cramming it into tiny pots or wolfing it down on the spot. Reporting on the drop, Food and Agriculture Organization Logistics Officer Trevor Page said: "I imagine a little sandy sorghum will be a welcome change from roots and leaves."

The worst drought in Africa's recorded history has not yet killed many people. But for West Africa these days, the situation is quite literally one of feast or famine. In a massive multi-nation relief effort, grain sacks are piled high in Dakar, Abidjan and Lagos, the chief railheads for the drought-desolated nations of Chad, Niger, Mauritania, Upper Volta, Mali and Senegal. Their antiquated railroad networks cannot move grain quickly enough into the interior. The ongoing airlift offers the most plausible solution, but there are not enough aircraft. The result is that while mass famine has been averted over a 2,600-mi. strip stretching across the southern Sahara, many of the area's 24 million people are still seriously short of food. Severe malnutrition seems inevitable, and with it an increase in disease and a lowering of the average life span of 38.

Though rain has finally come, the six-year drought has hit some of these countries so hard that it will take them an estimated ten years to get back to their gross-national-product levels of two years ago. "Even with good rains," says FAO Spokesman George Dorsey, "there is bound to be a shortfall in this year's harvest. Some farmers, driven off their lands when wells went dry, did not return in time for this year's planting. Others ate their seeds to survive." In Mali alone, the government reports that 250,000 nomads have lost all their animals down to the last goat. For the nomads, that means they have lost everything. Taken as a whole, the six stricken nations may lose 60% of their cattle and 50% of their grain harvests this year.

Thus far, eleven nations--the U.S., the Soviet Union, China, West Germany, Britain, France, Canada, Belgium, Italy, Spain and The Netherlands --have cooperated in a relief project sponsored by the U.S.'s Agency for International Development that has given the area $135 million in food (U.S. share: $43 million). Other nations have cooperated in FAO and Red Cross assistance efforts. "It has been a magnificent global effort," says Maurice J. Williams, the AID official who heads the U.S. program. "Without it, there would have been mass famine." While effective, the effort has been hampered by instances of corruption or indifference, particularly in Mali and Chad. Shrugged a Chad colonel when asked about piles of undistributed food: "If the nomads are hungry, let them come to population centers." Malian officials have also displayed a spectacular indifference to distributing supplies.

Plain inefficiency, however, has been the major problem for relief officials. Four of the six countries (Chad, Niger, Mali and Upper Volta) are on the United Nations list of "the least developed of the developing countries." FAO officials, concerned that this year's rains may prove insufficient, are recommending a series of precautions ranging from a post-harvest assessment of food needs to a crash program for restoring livestock herds. But FAO can only recommend. It is clear that action must be taken by the governments involved, to the best of their ability--and that best may not be good enough. FAO warns that unless intelligent and effective planning begins immediately, 1974 may prove still worse than 1973.

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