Post date: May 14, 2012 4:33:35 PM
MATAM, SENEGAL (MAY 10, 2012) (REUTERS) - For one evening, the people of this village in Matam, in northeast Senegal danced away their worries to the drumbeats of one of the country's greatest musicians, Baaba Maal.
Senegalese singer and Oxfam goodwill ambassador Baaba Maal performs in Matam in support of one of the regions affected by the Sahel food crisis.
Maal, an internationally acclaimed musician and renowned philanthropist visited the region in his capacity as ambassador for the international British charity, Oxfam to raise awareness about the ongoing food security and humanitarian crisis there and in the rest of the Sahel region of West Africa, that affecting more than 13 million people.
Poor rainfall brought poor harvests, causing soaring commodity prices and accentuating even further a food shortage in the region.
According to the United Nations, millions of people across the Sahel are on the brink of starvation due to drought and conflict, and aid response plans are less than 40 percent funded ahead of an expected crisis peak.
The Sahel is a belt of land spanning nearly a dozen of the world's poorest countries on the southern rim of the Sahara.
"We can see women and children who are very vulnerable, and we need to assist them in the coming months, we can perhaps avoid the the worst from happening on our watch, like the famine that took place in the horn of Africa," Maal appealed after his concert, referring to thousands of people in East Africa who died from famine last year, following the failure of the international community to heed early warnings.
Maal visited communities at the center of the food crisis, in Mbelogne village in the Matam region where residents are fighting for survival.
"In this village, we are confronted with enormous challenges; we do no have water to drink, our animals also have no water, our children do not go to school -- we need food, we really need help," said Yacine Demba Diallo, resident of Mbelogne.
After touring the village, Maal urged the international community to act immediately and provide aid to prevent the food shortage crisis from worsening.
"We have seen that the people here are confronted with a problem of survival, especially for women and children who are particularly affected. The men who are manly herders have explained have that the animals are also suffering, because there is a lack of pasture," he said.
In March this year, Oxfam launched a 36 million US dollar emergency appeal to help reach more than a million of the most vulnerable people in the Sahel.
"In Senegal here alone, more than 700,000 getting to 800,000 people are affected by the current food crisis. We were talking about food crisis before we came out here, we got to villages where people didn't even have water to drink. So now we are faced with a very serious issue, we saw animals dying , children struggling for a bottle of water and things like this. I think it's more serious than we thought," said Patrick Ezeala, regional communications and campaigns co-ordinator at Oxfam.
The UN has said the lack of funding is compromising efforts by aid agencies to respond to the growing humanitarian situation, citing donor fatigue for the lack of response.