[umgud]

Throw in a plague of locusts, and a familiar spectacle emerges: skeletal babies, distended bellies, people too famished to brush the flies from their faces, but still having enough energy to produce more babies.

[SouthernFreebird]

Yeah, I never understood that. Most women will stop having a period after dropping to a certain weight, if these are walking skeletins how are they still having sex and recreating.. and how can a starving mothers body even produce a baby with no nutrition to make it grow...? I'm confused.

[CGTRWK]

Yes, that is exactly the problem. Their women are essentially always pregnant from puberty onwards, and the only checks on their population are starvation and disease. Western aid does not make them any less poor, or any less hungry - it makes more of them the same level of poor and hungry.

The domestic economy and resources that keep 11.5 million Nigeriens on the verge of starvation would keep half that many living almost decently - but not while their women squirt out 6.75 children a piece.