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UN Shines Spotlight on Sahel Suffering

Margaret Besheer

   NEW YORK - The United Nations is warning that Africa's Sahel region is
   facing a confluence of factors that are pushing the region deeper into
   poverty, hunger and the hands of extremists. The U.N. says that if the
   international community does not invest attention and money to stop the
   problem now, the consequences could spread beyond the region in the
   coming years.

   "We may be approaching a tipping point beyond which it will be much,
   much, more difficult and expensive to change the trajectory," U.N.
   humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock told VOA.

   The broader Sahel -- including the central border region between Mali,
   Burkina Faso and Niger, as well as the Lake Chad Basin of northeastern
   Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad-- has become one of the world's
   fastest-growing humanitarian crises.

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