“CRISIS? What crisis?” asks the leader of an African country in which children are starving. Juxtapose his words with a picture of a malnourished baby, and the story writes itself. But the story of Niger may not be quite as simple as the media script. For one thing, Niger’s President Mamadou Tanja may be right when he tells the BBC there is no famine in his country.

Open a dictionary and famine simply means a severe shortage of food. But the f-word is so loaded with emotion that most aid agencies fight shy of it except in the most dire crisis.

If one of the hallmarks of a famine is that it devastates the entire community, then Niger is not a famine. The primary victims of the crisis in this African country are babies and young children, always the most vulnerable part of any population. Their deaths are usually the result of a fatal pincer movement: weakened by hunger, their bodies are prey to multiple diseases. In countries such as Niger, Mali and Chad, which hug the southern fringes of the Sahara, there is always a shortfall of food at this time of year, between one harvest and the next.

Some children will always die in this lean season. The same used to happen in Britain, in the depths of midwinter; hence the need for a December celebration to lift everyone’s spirits. This year, unusually, the shortfall in Niger has been devastating. The reason, analysts say, is not locusts or drought, which only dented last year’s harvest by about 11%. According to the Famine Early Warning System Network, a Washington-based group that tracks such crises, a major factor in Niger’s shortfall was the export of food to wealthier West African countries, driving prices in the market out of the reach of the poorest.

Subsistence farmers in Niger usually eat a great deal of the food they produce themselves. When they have surpluses, they sell some grain or goats to pay for weddings or to build themselves better homes. And when their crop is hit by pests or lack of rain, they turn to the markets to buy extra food. This year, that option was denied them. Markets in towns like Tahoua are filled with sacks of rice and shiny piles of vegetables, but the prices are far beyond the wallets of the poor.

The Niger government offered food at subsidised prices, below market rates, but even this was too much for the very poor. The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres blames Niger’s pursuit of free market policies for escalating the crisis. The government refused to distribute free food in the worst-affected regions because they feared it would disrupt the markets, the charity says. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service