Spanish football star calls for more funds to help Sahel hungry

Rome, 25 May – (ANA) - Spanish football star Raúl González has added his voice to urgent calls for funding to prevent a full-blown food and nutrition crisis in the Sahel region of West Africa, where over 17 million people are at risk of hunger.

Raúl González, who acts as a goodwill ambassador for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, travelled to the Sahel, where more than 1 million children under five face acute malnutrition in support of joint efforts by FAO and the European Commission to help the most affected people get back on their feet. To assist nearly 7 million people in the most affected countries – Burkina Faso, Chad, Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal – FAO is seeking $ 97 million for urgent actions such as seeds distribution, small-scale irrigation schemes, fodder production and vaccination campaigns. In addition, longer-term interventions are planned to reverse the cycle of food shortages and crises in the Sahel. But a funding gap of $ 74 million remains. (ANA)