Soaring food, fuel costs
challenge relief efforts

TIGARD — The same rising food and fuel costs delivering an economic punch to Northwest households are threatening the lives of the world’s neediest families.
      Spiking energy prices, widespread droughts and an increasing global food shortage are impacting impoverished communities in desperate need of aid, and the global relief agencies charged with helping them.
     “Without food, the struggle to help children and their families maintain basic health is nearly impossible,” said Dr. Wendy Dyment, emergency health specialist at the Tigard-based Christian relief agency Medical Teams International. Dyment, who recently returned from Darfur, Sudan, says food scarcity leads to increased malnutrition rates, adversely affects maternal health and undermines the body’s ability to fight infection. All are conditions that Dyment saw in Sudan.
     “The situation in Darfur continues to worsen,” added Dyment. “Even more children are dying this year than last, so urgent and expanded medical and nutritional assistance is needed immediately.”

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