The Tuareg and Fulani herdsmen of northeastern Niger live as if in another century, without electricity or running water, roaming the remotest regions to find pasture for their cows.
But when the hunger crisis that has devastated Niger reached them, they found a 21st century way to call for help: They sent an e-mail -- and say donors responded with cash the nomads traded for food for their families and their cattle.
"Science has evolved these days and we knew that we could reach out to the world via e-mail," said Amadou Doutchi, a Fulani leader and chairman of an association of herders and farmers in Dakoro, a region of sparse vegetation, sandy dunes and scorching sun some 750km from the capital, Niamey.
Initiative
Most nomads have never seen a computer -- unsurprising in a desperately poor country where only 17 percent of adults can read. But Doutchi is computer savvy and he and other literate members of the association approached local government officials with the idea of sending an e-mail.
Doutchi who already had his own account on a free, Web-based e-mail service, came up with a list of governments and aid groups to approach.
"Please help!" Doutchi wrote. "A catastrophe is currently in the making in the northeastern part of Niger among the nomad community and unless something is done we'll be heading to the worst."
Hunger is perennially a problem in Niger. But a locust invasion last year followed by drought have made the problem worse. Almost a third of Niger's population of 11.3 million is in crisis, with its children the most vulnerable. Some 800,000 children under the age of five are suffering from hunger, including 150,000 faced with severe malnutrition.
The crisis struck at the nomads' most precious possession. Some 3,000 cows perished in the region of Dakoro in June alone.
"Some herders who possessed between 30 and 50 animals woke up with none," Doutchi said, adding despair led one nomad to kill himself by diving into a well and another slit his own throat.
In mid-June, Doutchi traveled 132km south to the regional center of Maradi to send the e-mail. When he checked his box a week later, he said, several organizations had responded asking for more details on the community and its needs.
Response
Doutchi believes a 125,000 euro (US$150,000) cash donation from the Canadian government can be traced to his e-mail, though Canadian officials could not immediately comment. Canada has contributed a total of US$1 million to the World Food Program to combat hunger in Niger.
The nomads used the 125,000 euro to purchase 200 tonnes of millet and 100 tonnes of animal feed. Doutchi's organization, which includes Tuareg and Fulani groups representing 55,000 nomads, also has received 100 tonnes of food aid from the World Food Program.
"Of course, we are happy to receive this aid, but at the same time, we are trading our dignity for 5kg of sorghum," Doutchi said. "The Fulani man has never counted on anybody for assistance, just Mother Nature."
Shaken by the hunger crisis, some of the nomads in their flowing robes and giant turbans in blue and white are considering the prospect of abandoning their traditional way of life.
"When you've been living in a certain way for decades and it is not working, then you have to change," Mouloud Almahadi, a leading member of the community, said with a nervous smile.
With a burst of laughter echoed by six others in the shade of a makeshift tent, Almahadi said he could even consider settling in the capital.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion