 Niger's president played down the food crisis ravaging his desert nation, insisting Tuesday that people in the impoverished West African country "look well-fed."
| "All my friends are fat and happy. How about yours?" |
In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., President Mamadou Tandja acknowledged that a devastating locust invasion last year and poor rains have produced food shortages. But he said that was not unusual for his country — or for the entire Sahel region, a semi-desert scrubland that straddles the southern edge of the Sahara desert. "We are experiencing like all the countries in the Sahel a food crisis due to the poor harvest and the locust attacks of 2004," Tandja told the BBC.
| "The common folk are used to going without a few meals now and then." |
"The people of Niger look well-fed, as you can see," he added. TV networks have for weeks broadcast images of severely malnourished, skeletal children in Niger, many too weak to brush flies from their faces. Scores have died.
| Is it just me, or did he just spout an entire mouthful of utter nonsense? |
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