Upper Volta, 1973 - Sacks of cotton seed being loaded onto a French Air Force plane. The sacks will be "air-dropped" in northern Upper Volta to be used as fodder for starving cattle. Each sack contains 60 kilos and the total operation is airlifting 120 tons, representing 1 kg. per animal for four days, for 30,000 animals. France has provided two planes for this operation.
Lead caption:
Five years of subnormal rainfall has brought severe drought and tragedy to Upper Volta, one of the six affected countries of the Sahelian Zone along the southern edge of the Sahara - a region in which there is increasing human suffering and loss of cattle. The five other affected countries of the Sahel are Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Mali and Chad. The UN Secretary-General designated FAO as the focal point for coordinating emergency relief operations mounted by the UN system. A major part of the relief has been emergency food aid provided by the UN/FAO World Food Programme. During the first eight months of 1973, WFP allocated more than 57,000 metric tons of food (chiefly grains) to the six countries in peril - at a total cost to WFP of some $9 million.