The United Nations said Friday it was beginning free food handouts to hundreds of thousands of hungry people in Niger, a deeply impoverished West African nation still reeling from its worst food shortage in years. Poor rains and locusts ruined crops two years ago and Niger's people suffered through a massive food crisis in 2005. Crop yields picked up last year but food stores are again dwindling ahead of this year's harvest and the World Food Program said it would begin distributing cereals Friday to 650,000 people in Niger. «Recovery from a year as difficult as 2005 does not happen overnight,» the agency's Niger director, Sory Ouane, said in a statement. «A significant proportion of the population are still struggling to get back on their feet, despite what was a good harvest at the end of last year. They need a safety net and, together with the government, we are providing it,» he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
