Rat invasion fuels famine fears in remote Bangladesh
DHAKA (AFP) — Thousands of people in remote southeast Bangladesh are facing famine after a plague of rats destroyed their crops, forcing families to rely on dwindling food stocks, officials said.
Flowering of bamboo forests for the first time in 50 years in areas along the border with India has led to a so-called "rat-flood" -- rodents who have multiplied in number by feeding on bamboo blossoms, rice stalks and vegetables.
"The rat invasion has turned hilly plantation areas into scorched earth," Prosenjit Chakma, a senior aid official with the United Nations Development Programme said Saturday after a visit to the Chittagong Hills Tracts.
"A localised famine is going on in the worst affected areas like Sajek, Farua and Bilaichhari," Chakma told AFP.
Bamboo forests first began blossoming last year in Lusai Hills in the neighbouring Indian state of Mizoram, prompting authorities there to declare it a disaster zone after rats went on to eat food stocks.
The problem soon spread to nearby remote border villages of Bangladesh's hill districts and now stretches more than 300 kilometres (100 miles).
The region has already been racked by a two-decade ethnic insurgency over demands for autonomy which has claimed more than 2,500 lives.
Aid workers said the influx of rodents has affected 150,000 people in three of the districts. "Whatever they try to grow is devoured within hours by hundreds of thousands of rats," said Auronendo Tripura, spokesman of the Rangamati Hill Council, covering one of the three districts.
"In Rangamati alone, we believe up to 3,500 families face starvation because of the rat attack. All their crops have been damaged and their food stocks have run out," he said.
"People are now eating wild potatoes to survive. The Mizoram authorities are distributing food aid to the affected people," he said.
Locals said the plague happens once every 50 to 60 years, with the last such disaster in 1958, and is linked with the flowering of the bamboo forests.
The government, already struggling to help millions of victims of last year's floods and a devastating cyclone, has sent food aid to 15,000 affected people, Rangamati government administrator Nurul Amin said.
A senior central government official visited the area last week and promised more food aid. The government has said the flowering appeared to be over, which meant problems should ease.
But aid worker Chakma and local council oficials disagreed, saying rats would plague the region for at least three more years, a situation similar to the late 1950s during the last rodent invasion.
"Hundreds of thousands of hungry rats are attacking new areas every day. There are so many of them it's difficult to kill them," Chakma said, adding that his agency would hand out rat traps.
The United Nations Development Programme plans to help by distributing emergency food aid and relief to the area with the World Food Programme.
