AFRICA

Independent: 40 million starving 'as world watches Iraq'

UN agency accuses west of pledging to feed victims of Gulf war while concern for plight of hungry Africans fades

Rory Carroll in Kanywambizi, Zimbabwe
Wednesday April 9, 2003
The Guardian

Forty million Africans are at risk of starving but are not getting enough aid because the world is distracted by Iraq, the World Food Programme has warned.
In an impassioned appeal to the United Nations security council, James Morris, the UN agency's executive director, accused the west of double standards.

"How is it we routinely accept a level of suffering and hopelessness in Africa we would never accept in any other part of the world? We simply cannot let this stand."