Agence France Presse

"French charity group Action Against Hunger, which invited AFP to see the extent of the needs of the hurricane's victims, has begun disinfecting contaminated wells with chlorine and has installed a pump system to try to remove the dirty water. "This is an emergency," said Stephane Senia, the group's water programme manager, adding that they are working to restore the wells to their pre-cyclone condition. "So we're not looking to work miracles.

"...Aid group Action Against Hunger (ACF) warned that the opening of a new front in the east of the landlocked country could worsen an already dire food situation in the remote area. It raised fears 'that an armed ground intervention from Niger will cut the last access route to supply basic goods (food and medicine) to people in the region,' a statement said. 'There are clearly cases of acute malnutrition,' said ACF official Lucile Grosjean, adding that it affected about 20,000 children under 15.

“Light rains, poor harvests and overpriced food will combine to create a severe famine for five Sahel countries if urgent, large-scale measures are not taken, experts warn.

“‘What is undertaken today will determine whether a new major food crisis will occur’ in the region, said Vincent Taillandier, an official of Action Against Hunger.

“‘But it’s the cumulative effect of the current situation, less than two years after the last big food crisis, which presages the worst crisis since 2005.’”

"Luis Alexander is nine months old and suffers from acute malnutrition. He appears weak and tiny in his mother's arms in front of their mudbrick house.

Ronald Estuardo Navas, a hunger monitor at the international non-profit Action Against Hunger, measures Luis's arm with a tape that evaluates the nutritional health of a child via the size of the upper arm.

'He has a perimetre of 9.9 centimetres — there's a high risk he could die,' he said."

"'We are no longer talking about a humanitarian crisis or a humanitarian emergency,' said Jens Oppermann, the country director of Action Against Hunger (Action Contre La Faim, ACF). 'We are seeing this as a humanitarian catastrophe,' he told AFP.'We see people coming into Mogadishu in a state that we have not seen in this form before,' Oppermann added, describing 'unimaginable suffering beyond the scale of what is acceptable.'"

"Pierre Tripon of the NGO Action Against Hunger, said that if all aid groups leave Haiti, 'there will be a lot of suffering. Our efforts are still indispensable.'"

"Sixty kilometres (40 miles) from Mao, at Nokou, people make do with whatever dates they can find near dry river beds to survive, said a member of the Action contre la faim (Action against Hunger) NGO."

"PORT-AU-PRINCE - The aid group Action Against Hunger on Sunday slammed Haiti's forced evictions of hundreds of homeless quake victims from the pitch of the country's national stadium. 'We are shocked at the way it has happened. There is no planning. There is no solution offered to the people who lived in the stadium,'  unlike people evacuated from other camps, said Lucille Grosjean, spokeswoman for the France-based organization."

"'There is no water or power. Barring children and pregnant women, none have access to food or medicine. When it rains it's impossible to walk and the mud shacks became too muddy to even sleep in,' said a worker with Action Contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger, ACF)."

"...the French aid group Action Against Hunger (ACF) said it had started handing out emergency water supplies to 7,000 families in Gaza, where it said the water and sanitation system was "on the verge of total collapse."..."