Sahel food crisis

In reaction to the EU and US announcement of new sanctions against Mali, Oxfam and 12 other NGOs called for the international community to protect the people of Mali.

As many as 12,000 people could die per day by the end of the year as a result of hunger linked to COVID-19, potentially more than could die from the disease, warned Oxfam in a new briefing published today. The global observed daily mortality rate for COVID-19 reached its highest recorded point in April 2020 at just over 10,000 deaths per day.

In reaction to the postponement of the Sahel donor conference, which was due to take place on 18 June, Oxfam together with Action Against Hunger, CARE International, Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), and Save the Children, warned of a "hunger pandemic" in the Sahel on top of multiple crises, particularly as a result of COVID-19, conflict and the onset of the lean season.  24 million people (included children) are already in need of urgent humanitarian assistance.

In response to the latest figures shared in OCHA's Burkina Faso Humanitarian Response Plan, Oxfam warns of the alarming deterioration of the humanitarian crisis and calls upon the international community to immediately mobilize funding to meet the urgently needed humanitarian support.  More than 1.9 million people in Burkina Faso are in dire need of water, sanitation and hygiene support. 

Burkina Faso relies on subsistence agriculture to meet the basic needs of a large part of the population.

Acute food crises continue to reverse positive development trends in sub-Saharan Africa.

In 2012, the Sahel region of West and Central Africa was once again hit by a severe food crisis, affecting over 18 million people at its peak. At the start of 2012, when the crisis

On the proposed ECOWAS force to Mali:

Mamadou Biteye Oxfam’s West Africa Regional Director said :

Last week, British actor Bonnie Wright, best known for her role in the Harry Potter films, travelled to Senegal with Oxfam to draw attention to the growing humanitarian crisis in the country and to the wider food crisis across the Sahel region of West Africa.

Last week, Malian singer and guitarist Afel Bocoum was joined in Mali by British musician Damon Albarn for a unique music project aimed at drawing international attention to the growing humanitarian crisis in Mali and to the regional food crisis in West and Central Africa.