Washington, U.S.A. – An experts panel hosted by the Carnegie Endowment and Atlantic Council warned that al-Qaeda terrorists are consolidating their position in northern Mali — buoyed by drug-trafficking, kidnapping ransoms, Libyan arms, and an influx of extremists. As the international community deliberates next steps on the Mali ”meltdown,” analysts worry about the spread of an Arc of Instability across Africa’s Sahel.

“Terrorists are consolidating their position by the day in northern Mali and the international community just talks,” said Maman Sidikou, Niger’s Ambassador to the US. He cited the influx of Libyan arms, kidnappings, and control by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) of drug-smuggling routes. “Al-Qaeda has the resources, arms, and ideology to turn young people’s minds. They are the driving force.” Why would international leaders “wait while this turns into another Afghanistan?”

For Western aid-workers, Rossella Urru of Italy and Ainhoa Fernandez de Rincon and Enric Gonyacons of Spain, it was day 222 of captivity since their Oct. 23 kidnapping from a Polisario-run refugee camp near Tindouf in Algeria, reportedly assisted by camp-insiders. They are believed held in northern Mali by an al-Qaeda offshoot, Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), that threatens to kill one of them if its ransom demands aren’t met. More than half of Westerners kidnapped in Africa are now held in northern Mali, news reports indicate.

“Northern Mali is turning into a Star Wars bar of extremists from across the region,” said Dr. J. Peter Pham, Director, Atlantic Council’s Ansari Africa Center. “The last thing Africa needs right now is another Failed State” attracting bad actors.”  He added that “pragmatism” holds together the ideologically diverse groups now in control — Tuareg-led separatists, Ansar Dine Islamists, AQIM, and MUJAO.

“The meltdown in the north came in conjunction with the coup in the south,” said Anouar Boukhars, co-leader of Carnegie’s Mauritania working group and assistant professor, McDaniel College. He and panelist Rudolph Atallah, senior fellow, Atlantic Council, outlined the complex history that provided the “ingredients for the conflagration.”

Al-Qaeda’s consolidation in northern Mali underscores growing volatility across Africa’s Sahel.Multiple reports are linking instability in the region to other militants and groups in the Maghreb and Sahel, including members from the Polisario-run camps.

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Seattle, U.S.A. – While drought conditions persist in West Africa, putting millions in peril, more than 150,000 teens across America will sacrifice this weekend to take part in World Vision’s 30 Hour Famine, the world’s largest teen hunger awareness campaign.

Since 1992, 30 Hour Famine has raised more than $140 million, involving more than 6 million teens in fighting global hunger. This year, part of 30 Hour Famine funds will go to address the food crisis in West Africa (Mali,Niger, Senegal, Mauritania and Chad). The food crisis continues in the Horn of Africa as well.

Almost 15 million people across the Sahel (in West Africa) need food now. One million children suffer from severe malnutrition. According to a World Vision field study almost 90 per cent of people there estimate their food will run out before the next harvest. Every family surveyed said they’ve cut back on how much food they eat daily because there’s not enough to go around.

Many are forced to sell their animals to buy food but this is flooding the market causing livestock prices to plummet. Children are dropping out of school because families leave in search of food. Nearly one third of the population are still in debt from the last widespread crop failure in 2009.

This weekend, April 27th - 28th, teens nationwide prepare for the 21st annual 30 Hour Famine, forsaking food for 30 hours to get a taste of what the world’s poorest children face. Prior to the event, teens raise funds by explaining that $1 can help feed and care for a child a day. As they fast, teens consume only water and juice as they participate in local community service projects.

In 2011, 30 Hour Famine raised$9.5 million with funds going to fight global hunger. This year’s goal: $11 million. More than 850 million people will go to bed hungry tonight. World Vision is a relief and development organization reaching more than 100 million people worldwide.

World Vision’s 30 Hour Famine Manager Michele Tvedt was in the Horn of Africa recently. “I’ve seen poverty on every continent but this is the worst. Mothers burying their children in the desert – these are decisions no one should have to make. But American teens are standing with them.” Tvedt has personally done 30 Hour Famine for 13 years, adding up to more than 420 hours of fasting over the years.

Michele Tvedt is available for interviews. Here’s a link to a video: http://bit.ly/JD11rA

For info: www.30hourfamine.org or call 800-7-FAMINE or visit www.facebook.com/wv30HF

About World Vision – World Vision is a Christian relief and development organization dedicated to helping children and their communities worldwide reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty.  World Vision serves the world’s poor regardless of a person’s religion, race, ethnicity, or gender. For more information, visit www.worldvision.org.

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New York, U.S.A. – As malnutrition reaches emergency levels across the Sahel region of West and Central Africa affecting at least one million children, UNICEF partner UPS has sprung to action to provide transport for the first aerial shipment of lifesaving UNICEF supplies to Mauritania this year, a country within the affected region.

The UPS flight, departing from Cologne, Germany on April 22 early morning contained 102,000 pounds of critical UNICEF relief supplies including nutrition, health, education, water, sanitation, and hygiene items.

UPS worked quickly with UNICEF to coordinate the shipment of relief items from various locations including UNICEF’s Supply Center in Copenhagen, in addition to Madrid, Lier, and Toulouse for delivery to Nouakchott, Mauritania on Sunday, April 22. Flying in supplies dramatically reduces the delivery time to affected communities.

“UPS understands that during humanitarian emergencies, the need to move supplies quickly is essential and can mean the difference between life and death,” said U.S. Fund for UNICEF President and CEO Caryl Stern. “We are extremely grateful that UPS has once again donated its expertise and services, this time to help UNICEF deliver lifesaving supplies to the one million children at risk in the Sahel region, and for their ongoing support in times of emergency.”

UPS has consistently supported UNICEF’s preparedness and emergency relief efforts, responding to the devastating earthquake in Haiti in January 2010 by offering volunteers, logistician experts, and transport services. They also donated a charter flight carrying 24 metric tons of critical UNICEF relief supplies last November from Copenhagen to Nairobi for children affected by the severe drought in the Horn of Africa.

“Logistics plays an incredibly vital role whenever a humanitarian crisis occurs, which is why UPS has lent its expertise for many years to bringing critical logistical support to areas of the world affected by disease, drought, and other disasters,” said UPS International President Dan Brutto, a member of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.

“For example, we just completed a temperature-controlled move of flu vaccine from the U.S. to Laos.  With this drought situation in the Sahel region, millions of lives are at stake and UPS is proud to be working with our partners at UNICEF to provide timely, life-saving supplies to the people of West and Central Africa.”

An estimated 15 million people are affected by the drought in eight countries across the Sahel, including Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and northern Cameroon, Nigeria, and Senegal. UNICEF needs more than $60 million for immediate relief operations to save children’s lives and prevent a humanitarian disaster from unfolding.

During a recent visit to the region, UNICEF’s Executive Director Anthony Lake called for an urgent escalation of humanitarian efforts to bring about an end to the crisis. Women and children in the Sahel are suffering from the impact of multiple threats—poor harvests because of drought, high food prices, and insecurity in parts of the region. Due to recent unrest in Mali, approximately 200,000 people have been displaced to neighboring countries – including Mauritania – exacerbating the hunger crisis there.

In January and February, tens of thousands of children were treated for severe acute malnutrition at nutritional rehabilitation centers that are filling up fast with the start of the “lean season”—the period between harvests that is traditionally the worst time of the year in a harsh environment with difficult logistics.

How to help: To make a tax-deductible contribution please contact the U.S. Fund for UNICEF
Website: www.unicefusa.org/sahel
Toll free : 1-800-FOR-KIDS
Mail: 125 Maiden Lane, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10038

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A permanent, sustainable source of drinking water that is expected to serve as many as 25,000 people in Niger is being funded in part by aUS$40,000 donation from The Prem Rawat Foundation (TPRF). With the grant, TPRF is providing further aid to the nonprofit Amman Imman: Water Is Life for an effort already started with the financial assistance of the Vibrant Village Foundation.

“This project,” says TPRF President Linda Pascotto, “is particularly valuable because it will not only transform life for people living in this arid region, but will involve them in future management of the water source so that it will be self-sustaining.”

The grant will fund construction of a borehole in the village of Ebagueye in the Azawak region that will serve as a year-round source of clean water for people and livestock. Plans call for training local villagers to manage the borehole and engage in activities that will assure water and food security in the future.

Ariane Kirtley, founder and executive director of Amman Imman, says Amman Imman is the only organization that she knows of entirely dedicated to building sustainable and permanent sources of water in the Azawak, a dry plain about the size of Florida. Amman Imman is also one of the few organizations working in the Azawak region to address the food crisis and emergency humanitarian situation afflicting most countries of the Sahel.

The borehole-building team has been in Niger since mid-November. “We chose the site of Ebagueye and its surrounding communities at the beginning of December,” Kirtley says. “By the end of December, the Ebagueye borehole had been drilled. The infrastructure was finished at the beginning of February, and the community has begun drinking the potable water.”

Kirtley says it is part of her organization’s overall goal to eventually create an “Oases of Life” across the vast Azawak, starting with drilling permanent and sustainable water sources, not only for its 500,000 inhabitants, but also for the refugees that seek shelter on its vast plains, including those that fled Libyalast year, and those fleeing Mali today.

“We at Amman Imman are most grateful for the collaboration that has developed between our organization, TPRF and the Vibrant Village Foundation,” says Kirtley.

About The Prem Rawat Foundation (TPRF)
The Prem Rawat Foundation promotes Prem Rawat’s message of peace and his vision of addressing fundamental human needs so that people everywhere can live with dignity, peace and prosperity. For more information, visit: www.tprf.org.

Image Courtesy of   africa924 / Shutterstock.com

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As the situation worsens in the Sahel, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is appealing for 12.3 million Swiss francs (about 10 million euros) in order to bring aid to some 700,000 people in Mali and Niger and thereby help forestall a major humanitarian crisis in the two countries.

“People in Mali and Niger are facing a twofold crisis: the food insecurity that has afflicted the entire region, and the fighting in the north of Mali that is driving massive displacement,” said Boris Michel, the ICRC’s head of operations for North and West Africa.

The armed confrontations that have occurred in northern Mali in recent weeks have forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes in utter destitution and to seek refuge either within Mali, as at least 60,000 people have done, or in neighbouring countries. Those who have fled to Niger are concentrated in the northern Tillabéry region, one of the areas hardest hit by the food crisis and the scene of recent inter-community violence.

“The fighting has resulted in casualties. In addition, people have been taken captive and families have been dispersed,” said Mr Michel. The ICRC’s priorities are to visit people detained in connection with the fighting and to provide care for the wounded either directly, through the Mali Red Cross or by supporting health-care facilities.

“We also plan to continue to provide aid for displaced people,” added Mr Michel. “We are preparing to distribute food to 84,000 people and emergency supplies to around 60,000. Shelter, clean drinking water, hygiene items and health care will also be made available as needed.”

The fighting in northern Mali is further straining a part of the Sahel already hard hit by a lack of rainfall and by recurrent food crises. “The shortfall in agricultural production and the lack of feed for the livestock are affecting countless families of farmers and herders in Mali and Niger,” said Mr Michel. “Some of them were never able to recover from the effects of the crisis of two years ago. Their situation is particularly difficult.”

The aid that the ICRC plans to provide is intended for people in the Kidal, Gao and Tombouctou areas in the north of Mali, and in the Tillabéry and Agadez areas of Niger. “What we are striving to achieve is not only to save lives but also to provide support for the people’s own resilience,” said Mr Michel.

Accordingly, the plan includes distributing food to over 240,000 people, buying livestock at a reasonable price to preserve the livelihood of 120,000 nomads, and distributing seed to increase the productive capacity of 90,000 farmers. The funds requested will be additional to the 22.3 million Swiss francs (approximately 18.3 million euros) initially budgeted for 2012.

In addition to the emergency actions it is taking in Mali and Niger, the ICRC conducts longer-term activities in the two countries, in particular to help detainees and to improve economic security, access to water and health care. The ICRC has been performing its humanitarian tasks in the region in close cooperation with the Mali Red Cross and the Red Cross Society of Niger since 2009.

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