In its Saturday edition, the semiofficial newspaper of the Vatican says that “the tragic conditions of Africa, with the unbearable scandal of famine and the devastating epidemics” are a priority for “international action.”
The paper makes its appeal “at a time when public opinion throughout the world awaits with ever greater anxiety, but also with persistent hope, that the specter of another war will be removed.”
The newspaper notes that in Ethiopia, for example, where one-fourth of the population of 63 million urgently needs food aid, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reports that international organizations have received only 40% of the amount needed.
The newspaper also reports the acute lack of food being experienced by 2 million people in five countries of the Sahel (Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Gambia and Cape Verde), and the grave poverty of many families of Ivory Coast, due to political instability.
