Ten thousand children died today
and then six thousand more
in Zambia, Bolivia,
Burundi and Darfur.
They did not make the evening news,
their prolonged deaths ignored.
No earthquake buried them alive,
no footage to record.
Tsunamis, yes, and hurricanes --
for those a telethon,
but die for lack of rice and wheat
and watch the world move on.
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Author Notes
Approximately 16,000 children die each day from hunger-related causes, one every 5 seconds.
Zambia, in Africa, is 165th out of 177 on the "Human Development Index" according to the World Food Programme of the United Nations. The infant mortality rate is over 10%.
My daughter sends a child in Zambia $25 a month through a charitable organization - her family income without Miranda's contribution is under $40 a month.
Bolivia is one of the poorest nations in Latin America. Two thirds of its population live below the international poverty line. Burundi, an African nation, has 46% of its population malnourished after 15 years of civil war. Darfur, in the western region of Sudan, has 2 million displaced people living in dangerous camps. Their life expectancy is about 58 years.
Haiti is 148th out of 177 countries on the Human Development Scale. 76% of its people live on less than $2 a day, 56% on less than $1 a day. 50% of its pregnant women and children under five are anemic. These are among the countries where 16,000 children die each and every day from hunger and hunger-related diseases. Haiti finally made the news because of an earthquake, and all of a sudden there is an outpouring of donations and volunteers and telethons and news specials, but their children were dying and orphaned in massive numbers for years and years before the earth shook. Must children in countries like Zambia, Bolivia and Burundi hope a natural disaster brings them some help too?
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