Mauritania: Record hunger predicted in 2008
Food security experts predict that Mauritania, where 70 percent of food eaten is imported, may face its highest ever levels of hunger in 2008, and aid agency representatives are concerned they do not have enough money to meet people's needs amid skyrocketing food prices and dwindling cereals for sale on world markets.
“This could be the year of all dangers. All the shocks may be present - oil price rises, raw material price rises, food commodity price rises, a reorganisation of the main ocean trading routes, as well as a weakening of the dollar,” Giancarlo Cirri, representative of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) told IRIN.
