Belembaye T. Bell_LE DROIT A LA VIE BAFOUE PAR LES

Belembaye T. Bell/ONUAA (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations)

The right to life is the first right which every man aspires. Life can only be meaningful if the people live because they are the only ones to give it its highest sense. Unfortunately, there are many people who cannot enjoy this privilege to live, not because of their sin but by the fault of those who forget or ignore that somewhere in the world thousands of persons are dying.

I write this little article to make my contribution to support those who are fighting for the right to life of peoples, alongside those who have a thought for all people in the world who suffer. Because it is a duty for everyone to save this right that is flouted by natural disasters. No country can feel indifferent to the magnitude of the suffering people of this planet Earth. It is true that all countries suffer. But this is only the nature and extent of this suffering which vary from one point to another. In Asia, the Americas and the Pacific, we are witnessing the natural disaster of such magnitude that it is sometimes difficult to explain.

Everybody talks about climate change, but nobody shows why and everyone suffers its physical, environmental, geopolitical and human consequences. Despite the more sophisticated measures of prevention, avalanches, fires, storms, floods and earthquakes continue to occur more frequently. The risk of their occurrence is becoming increasingly certain creating some psychosis in many countries. Furthermore, drought, bushfires and nowadays the global warming whose consequences will clearly affect sensitively human life on earth. The chain of supervision from the observation to the decision through information, anticipation and risk management is not sufficient to predict or to effectively manage disasters. In Africa, agricultural crises are becoming more frequent, serious but unfortunately unpredictable. Unfortunately it is the rural population that derives its livelihood from agriculture which is the most affected.

Sub- Saharan African countries have their own share of natural scourges ravaging entire populations. In recent years, droughts episodes caused by rainfall failure expose entire regions of severe food disasters. In sahelian region of Chad, large part of the population lives in a situation of permanent food insecurity for some years. The Kanem region, located in the west of the country became the epicenter of this crisis that affected the country because of the failure of agricultural production due to the rainfall deficit during the 2009 agricultural campaign. Several studies and surveys revealed statistics of malnutrition rates higher than the emergency threshold and caused enormous concern among the public.

The rate of global acute malnutrition and severe acute malnutrition recorded in sepember 2008 were 18% and 3% respectively. This trend was confirmed by the study conducted by Action against Hunger (ACF), which showed prevalence rates of 20% and 2.8% for both cases of malnutrition in the vicinity of the great city of the region where the rate of daily mortality is estimated at 3 ‰. In neighboring areas of Kanem, similar rates were recorded with a global acute malnutrition rate of 21.1%. Also 40.75% of household has a poor food consumption, while 12.2% has a limited consumption and 53% of deplorable food consumption. The number of monthly admissions in the care structures for severe acute malnutrition is multiplied by 6 between January and May 2009 representing an increase of 84% in Kanem region. The lack of energetic food such as cereals, oilseeds and protein starches such as meat, meat, fish added to the poor quality of available food creates serious disease to thousands of children.  Those who were not quickly rescued lose the right to life. I currently live in this area and I know the horror caused by this crisis on the people whose valid arms are leaving for other regions or other countries, leaving behind the old people and children to their fate.

These abandoned community need care and attention from people who believe that right to life is the fundamental right that deserves to be defended. Finally I urge all people of every race, every culture of every denomination to have a special thought for the hungry, refugees, victims of natural disasters around the world and to exercise their duty to rescue people in danger to alleviate the suffering of people. Death and disability of children on a large scale, maternal mortality related to malnutrition due to the food crisis deprives one part of the mankind of its right to life. Let us act together!