Photo: UNDP/Doninic Harcourt-Webster

When there are not enough hours in the day (file photo)

OUAGADOUGOU,  – With limited access to time-saving agricultural tools and technologies, rural women in West Africa are forced to cut down on the time they spend breastfeeding, in some cases over-feeding their newborns into slumber to free time for the fields.

This is the final article in a five-part series on the role of breastfeeding in curbing infant mortality in West Africa.

In the agricultural community of Chetima Wango, 30km from Niger’s far-east city of Diffa, more than 70 percent of the women surveyed by the NGO Helen Keller International said they fed their babies nothing but breast milk for six months. Yet when IRIN asked one of the village’s four health committee volunteers, Fadji Ousmane, about breastfeeding in her community, she replied: “Our women are constantly in the fields and do not breastfeed [as often as they say]. They do not have time.”

World Health Organization (WHO) recommends feeding only breast milk to babies for six months in order to boost their immune systems and stave off malnutrition through natural nutrients and antibodies found in the milk.

In the Sahel region, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates 600,000 under-five children die from malnutrition annually.

Helen Keller International’s coordinator for Diffa, Omar Mamane, told IRIN many factors play a role in malnutrition. “Part of the problem starts in the fields.”

Some of the time-saving farming innovations that have been introduced worldwide have actually hurt women, according to the 2008 Gender in Agriculture Sourcebook produced by the World Bank, UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and International Fund for Agriculture Development. “Tractors and animal-drawn plows have been used by men to increase the acreage under cultivation, leaving women to struggle with an increase in weeding and harvesting, using only handheld tools,” it said.

But Niger’s breastfeeding focal point in the Ministry of Health, Karki Roumatou Adamou Arowa, dismissed agriculture as the main reason for the country’s low rate of exclusive breastfeeding – less than 5 percent. “When women head to the fields, they strap their children on them. They can breastfeed even if they are working.”

Arowa told IRIN the main problem is communities’ insistence on giving babies water in addition to breast milk during the first six months, which lessens breast milk’s therapeutic, even life-saving, power.

Rural women are responsible for half the world’s food production, including 80 percent of the food supply in sub-Saharan African, according to FAO. But they are among the last to use labour-saving equipment like mechanized mills, donkey-drawn equipment or long-handled hoes, according to FAO’s senior officer on gender and development, Diana Tempelman.

“Do the [agriculture] extension workers know about these kinds of technologies to inform the female farmers; thereafter comes the question of are they available locally; followed by, do female farmers have money?” Tempelman asked IRIN.

Next door to Niger, communities in Burkina Faso have reported feeding their newborns solid food to induce sleep in order to free time for agriculture work, said nutritionist Marcel Dabo Bengaly. “They feed their babies millet porridge,” said Bengaly, who is leading a national breastfeeding study for UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

He told IRIN women are unaware their infants’ still-forming digestive systems are ill-equipped to handle adult food. “All they know is that feeding their babies solid food buys them a few extra hours of work in the fields.”

pt/aj http://www.irinnews.org

Photo: Erica Silverman/IRIN

MAG director Mark Russell reviews a ‘high risk’ UNDP rubble removal site in Jabalyah, where seven anti-tank mines, rockets and artillery shells were discovered.The home that remains standing was used as a base by Israeli forces

GAZA CITY,  – The UN Development Programme (UNDP) has begun removing 600,000MT of rubble and debris left over from Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.

More than six months later, the most deadly threat to civilians emanates from unexploded ordnance (UXO) in rubble and underground. Falling rubble and hazardous material, including UXO, have killed 17 and injured at least 25 Palestinians, mostly children, since the operation ended on 18 January, according to UNDP in Gaza.

At least 31 munitions containing white phosphorus have been found. Israel’s use of white phosphorus in Gaza was initially denied but was recently acknowledged in an official report but with the claim that it was used only in a manner consistent with relevant international law.

Kerei Ruru, head of the UN Mine Action Team Gaza Office (UNMAT-GO), has been working in Gaza since the end of January to locate and neutralize the UXO.

“Some 4,000 housing units were completely destroyed in the bombardment and UXO risks assessments are conducted on each of the sites,” said Ruru.

Most surface contamination was removed by the Gaza authorities, according to UNMAT.

UNMAT is now working to remove UXO buried in thousands of destroyed buildings and in 12,000ha of agricultural land. Ruru’s teams are still awaiting permission to access the border areas in the north and east, also a major threat.

Ruru leads five teams operating on the ground in Gaza from British-based NGO Mines Advisory Group (MAG), the implementing partner.

MAG teams located 120 pieces of UXO and 31 unexploded white phosphorous shells in Gaza as of 23 July, said Ruru. As of early June, 28 percent of items discovered contained white phosphorous and 72 percent contained high explosives, according to UNMAT.

After the end of the Israeli operation, UNMAT opened all arterial roads in Gaza, permitting access for humanitarian relief; cleared UXO from 38 UN Children’s Fund and government supported schools and four UN Relief and Works Agency schools, industrial and residential areas, and other high-priority buildings, including hospitals and UN facilities.

MAG director Mark Russell has uncovered seven anti-tank mines at one site alone in the Abu Eida area in Jabalyah, where the UNDP will clear rubble.

“Anti-tank mines are used as demolition charges, placed at the base of a structure to level the building, producing a layered effect” said Russell.

Photo: Iyad El Baba/UNICEF-oPt

Israel initially denied using white phosphorus in Gaza but recently acknowledged it with the claim that it was used only in a manner consistent with international law

Spotting UXO

“The best detection of UXO is done by examining fragmentation from ordnance, entry holes, assessing how much damage the building sustained and eyewitness accounts,” said Ruru.

UNMAT also trained UNDP and CHF International NGO rubble removal teams in UXO safety awareness before undertaking rubble removal activities.

The UNDP has found 2,533 sites, all private homes, in addition to 23 public buildings, according to UNDP officer Amran el-Kharouby in Gaza.

The rubble removal project is an essential step to recovery and restoration of services for residents, and aims to safeguard public health and environment and create job opportunities for more than 200,000 Gazans.

UNMAT conducts a risk assessment at each rubble removal site. If the risk is determined to be low, rubble removal continues. If medium, trained members of the rubble removal teams observe potential threats and an UNMAT team remains on call in the area. If the risk is high, UNMAT maintains an UXO team on site daily.

In addition to private homes, hundreds of other targets, including 700 private factories and more than 100 public buildings, were damaged or destroyed during the operation, said El-Kharouby.

es/at/mw source.www.irinnews.org

Photo: Tariq Saeed/IRIN

The people of Waziristan hope to find stability and an end to a continous cycle of fleeing from and returning to their homes

WANA,  – It’s business as usual in the small bazaar at Wana, the principal town of South Waziristan in Pakistan’s tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan. But the air is heavy with gossip about the reported death of Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, in an attack several days ago by unmanned US drones.

The fate of this notoriously ruthless militant has big implications for the stability of the region and its 400,000 inhabitants, who have become accustomed to fleeing and returning to their homes intermittently over the past few years.

Mehsud’s death was announced on 7 August by Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and the news made headlines around the world.

However, Hakimullah Mehsud, one of the leaders of the Taliban in Pakistan, told the BBC that reports of Mehsud’s death were “ridiculous”. “The news regarding our respected chief is propaganda by our enemies,” he said.

Local residents remain cautious about the news until hard evidence is forthcoming. “We believe he is dead, but we did not see the body, so how can we say anything for sure?” local resident Amanullah Wazir, who asked that his real name be withheld, told IRIN.

Many residents hope that if Mehsud is dead it could bring a sense of stability to their lives. Since June, when the Pakistan army began its offensive against the Taliban, 40,000 people have fled North and South Waziristan, according to the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

Waves of displacement

Photo: Google Maps

A map of Pakistan and the surrounding region highlighting North Waziristan (red) and South Waziristan (blue)

Spread out over 11,585 sq km, the two adjacent territories have seen waves of displacement over previous years as a result of fighting between government troops and militants.

“Many who could do so have set up homes in Peshawar [capital of North West Frontier Province] or other places because there is so much instability in Waziristan,” Kamran Arif, a Peshawar-based lawyer and human rights activist, told IRIN.

Some of these displaced people now wonder if they will be able to return. “We left our home, a few kilometres outside Wana in October 2007. Now that this news has come in, perhaps the fighting will stop in Waziristan and we will be able to go home,” Maryam Bibi, a 40-year-old internally displaced person (IDP) in Peshawar, said.

For several weeks there has been widespread anticipation of an intensification of fighting in Waziristan that would lead to the displacement of many more people.

“There would be enormous issues if there were more large-scale displacements at this point. There is simply insufficient preparedness and a lack of resources,” an official with the NWFP government’s Emergency Response Unit, who did not want to be named, told IRIN.

Heavy economic losses

People in Wana and surrounding villages also complain the fighting has caused heavy economic losses. “I used to drive a truck and transport goods out of Waziristan, including pine-nuts and fruit. But now people are producing less. Some orchards have been destroyed and I suffer because business is slow,” Dilawar Ahmed, 30, said.

Waziris hope this situation will now change. While the military operation in Waziristan continues and until it finally ends, local residents say they will be anxious about their future and the possibility that they may have to abandon their homes and seek shelter elsewhere.

After the recent return of 765,000 IDPs to Swat and Buner districts, some 1.3 million people remain displaced in Pakistan, according to a 7 August UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs situation report.

kh/at/ed source.www.irinnews.org