NIAMEY — Pupils are no longer going to school in the south of Niger because of serious food shortages that have hit the poverty-stricken west African country, the government announced Friday.

"Because of the food insecurity that prevails in our country, cases of mass abandonment have been registered in some schools," the government said in a published statement after a cabinet meeting Thursday.

The abandoning of classes was reported particularly in the Takieta district in the central southern Zinder region, where primary schools were totally or partially empty.

The government described the situation as "very worrying" and said that the "departures are the consequence of the exodus of families" faced with severe food shortages.

The statement was the first official report of peasant farmers leaving their homesteads because of famine. The Zinder region is one of the worst affected by the food crisis that has struck Niger this year.

The population of several Sahel nations in west Africa has endured chronic malnutrition for years and has been plunged into potential starvation because of the lack of rain in 2009.

According to the charity Oxfam, this crisis could affect "almost 10 million people" in coming months.

The case of Niger is particularly worrying. Fifty cases of children dying of starvation have been reported by the authorities since January.

On March 10, the transitional prime minister named by a military junta in power since February, Mahamadou Danda, launched a "pressing appeal" for help to the international community.

Copyright © 2010 AFP.