Bangladesh's 'hidden hunger' worsening: minister

[Vampire]

Bangladesh's 'hidden hunger' worsening: minister

DHAKA (AFP) - Spiralling food prices in impoverished Bangladesh are seeing more and more people go hungry, forcing authorities to further increase aid, a minister warned Thursday.

The problem, the result of devastating floods and a cyclone last year and compounded by global price hikes, has created a "hidden hunger in the country, and it has intensified," food and disaster management minister A.M.M Shawkat Ali said.

The government has increased its food relief through free food distribution, food for work programme and subsidised food sales through its open-market outlets to tackle the situation, the minister said.

"There is no question of negligence by the government. Every month we are increasing our food aid. If it is not enough, we will increase the amount, he said.

The price of rice is a key issue in Bangladesh, where households are estimated to spend nearly 70 percent of their income on food.

Bangladesh and other Asian nations have been hit by record costs for imported oil and food in the past year.

Dhaka's government food monitoring unit has said food prices have doubled in that time.

One former minister warned earlier this month of a "silent famine" in the country, where 40 percent of the 144 million population live on a dollar a day and millions are still recovering from last year's disasters.

The food and disaster management minister said the government was planning a further expansion of its food aid programme and to create jobs in rural areas.

The government will spend one billion taka (14.5 million dollars) to create jobs in rural areas in April and early May ahead of the next rice harvest, Ali said.

He said the the government intends to distribute 268,555 tonnes of rice through food for work programmes and open market sales outlets this month.

Bangladesh's emergency government has so far distributed nearly one million tonnes of rice since July last year after the shortages created by floods and last November's cyclone.

Bangladesh has been ruled by a military-backed government since disputed elections were cancelled and an emergency imposed in January 2007.

I hope that the things are going to be well there, but at least from this article they seems to be prety grim.
Maybe it should be organized some international suport?

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Bangladesh may as well be a no-go zone. I mean, the whole country is pretty much a floodplain, disasters happen there so much that they're barely called disasters anymore. Of course, some international aid would be helpful but permanent aid - flood barriers and the like - may help a lot more than temporary aid like a bit of food.