Aug
2012
Aug
The Canadian government has announced that it will match donations made by Canadians to eligible charities responding to the crisis in Sahel, a sub-Saharan region of West Africa where more than 18 million people are facing food shortages.
In making the announcement, International Co-Operation Minister Julian Fantino said Canadians themselves will dictate how much money comes out of the federal coffers.
The government will match Canadians' donations to registered charities supporting the Sahel region between Aug. 7 and Sept. 30, Mr. Fantino said.
Ottawa has already made an initial $10 million contribution to the matching fund. A similar initiative in 2010 saw the federal government shell out $220 million to equal the donations that poured in from Canadians to provide relief to Haiti in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake.
“Right now, millions of women, men and children in the Sahel are suffering from hunger and severe malnutrition,” Mr. Fantino said in a statement. “This is absolutely unacceptable. With generosity from Canadians, we can do more to respond to this crisis and support people in dire need.”
The nine countries in the Sahel region have been contending with increasingly desperate conditions as political tensions escalate in Mali. A coup in the country's north has plunged the area into chaos as so-called Islamist and other rebels fight for control of the territory.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said 260,000 Malian refugees have fled for neighbouring Mauritania, Niger and Burkina Faso, which have kept their borders open and shared their food supplies despite the dire hunger crisis they face within their own nations. Some 200,000 people also have been displaced within Mali, facing dire conditions.
Along with those four countries, Ottawa has identified Chad, Senegal, Gambia and northern Cameroon as being most severely impacted by the escalating crisis.
In May, the Muslim Link reported that Islamic Relief is hoping to spend up to six million dollars in the next month or so to combat the situation. It has issued an emergency Sahel Region Appeal to help exact an effective response to the crisis.
With files from the Associated Press
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