Niger's proud Tuareg people are walking the road to oblivion

The goat is killed swiftly, its body quivering for a few seconds after the throat is slit. The imam raises his palms in supplication, thanking Allah for the sustenance he is providing even in these terrible times.

The ritual slaughter at Zonghu is to celebrate the naming of the chief's new grandson, a celebration of life. But all around are the imprints of death, six little graves of children who were the latest to die, rotting carcasses of cattle which once formed the prize herd of this Tuareg community, and fields of withered crops.

Here in southern Niger a people, their livelihood, their lifestyle, is fast disappearing. With pastures scorched by drought and stripped by locusts, the nomads are selling their livestock at rock bottom prices as they collapse through lack of food and become prey to disease. There are also direct human casualties. The herds are symbols of wealth and prestige among the Tuareg. There is, in this wilderness, a symbiotic relationship between man and beast, and, in these times of trouble, many heads of families commit suicide after they have disposed of the last of their animals.

The tragedy of the Tuareg is one of the lesser known tales from what the United Nations its under secretary general Jan Egeland calls "the number one forgotten and neglected emergency in the world". Isolated in remote parts of the vast country, the nomads are among the last to receive what little aid there is.

The facts are stark. The shortage of fodder in Niger this year is the worst on record even in this benighted land, the second poorest country in the world, with a history of failed rains and food crises. Two-thirds of the shortfall of five million tons was due to drought; what was left was taken by locusts.

The plains of Arghum rolling down from the settlement of Kilguz Tuareg were once verdant. People made a living from trading livestock and a season of subsistence farming before moving to a new location. Now the land is a vast swath of brown earth. Camels that would have once fetched 110,000 CFA francs (£110) have been sold for 10,000 francs, and cows worth 70,000 went for 4,000 francs to businessmen who flooded into nearby market towns from all over the country.

It was the free market in action, which the Niger government espouses as the best way to tackle famine. There is little incentive for politicians to look after the nomads. Despite its ramshackle structure and a president who claims there is no crisis, Niger is a democracy, and there are no vote banks in people who keep moving and do not register in villages or towns. The Tuareg do not feature in any of the government aid schemes in the current emergency.

For the people of the Zonghu, what little money they made was needed to buy essential food, especially for the children. Many of the remaining cattle were too weak or ill to survive and had to be put down.

As the villagers described their hardship, sitting in a cluster on the hillside, their chief, 88-year-old Ahmed Garidh, was brought back from hospital, there being no funds left for treatment for his paralysed arm and leg.

Musi Ahmed, his 55-year-old son, put his head in his hands. "I have had to sell off or kill four-fifths of my herd - camels, cows, goats. Now we do not know what Allah wills for the future, but I am very fearful. We have had bad seasons, but nothing as bad as this. Our crops failed, and then when we thought things could not get any more bad, the locusts came. Look around you, everything has gone, the pastures, the plants."

Most of the people have also gone, to seek work in nearby towns or across the border in Nigeria. Through the afternoon Tuareg men dressed in takakhat robes and tagulmas headscarves of blue, green and black, arrived for the naming ceremony - the egunda - from surrounding areas. The women, in bright red and orange gowns come later, gifts balanced on their heads in pots.

But it is a trickle. Hamood Hanjan, 42, another son of the chief, said: "There are less than 100 people here for my son's egunda. For the last ceremony we had over 2,000. Our people have gone away because if they stayed here they will surely die sooner or later. It is very sad because we, the Kilguz, have stayed together for hundreds of years and now we shall not see many of these people again.

"We have had terrible suffering. Sometimes the children were so hungry they were eating leaves from the trees. We have seen our children die. We are men of the Kilguz, but we could not save them. I used to have around 200 cattle, now I have just 18 and I do not know how much longer I can keep them. To us it is very important that we keep our herds, it is part of our tradition. When they lose them, some of the men are very badly affected, they think they have failed."

One such was Joluf Mohammed, from a nearby settlement, who threw himself into a well. Another was Iskr Ahmed, who cut his own throat with the knife he had used to kill his lead bull. The families left behind are now being cared for by the rest of the community.

The crisis has also led to other fractures in this society. The men arriving in Zonghu wear takohos - swords with ornate, intricately cut handles - around their waists. It is not just for tradition's sake, cattle have been rustled and robbers ambush travellers on the road to the towns.

Suleiman Azanouyis, aged 76, unwraps his headscarf to show a deep wound. "I was attacked when I was returning from Bargas by a man with a cutlass. I was carrying a bag and he must have thought I had money or food, but it was empty. He did not know how poor I am."

Mohammed Hameed is 30 years old and married, but unusually for this region, he does not have children. "How could I feed them?" he asks. "We shall see what happens and then decide what to do. If things remain bad we shall have to move from here anyway.

"We need help, we hear that people in other parts of the country are being given help, but we are not getting it. You cannot depend on our government officials. They are thieves, they will steal the food. But if the foreigners give us help we shall make sure everyone gets what they need."

While organisations such as Save The Children are flying in aid and opening relief centres in other parts of the country, Oxfam has started a scheme with its local partner, Aren, to provide aid and buy cattle from the Tuareg for prices pitched at far higher than they will get from local traders. Louis Belanger, a senior officer with Oxfam, said: "We pay what is a fair price under the circumstances, the equivalent of £40 a head for cattle.

"If it is disease-free then we shall slaughter it, dry it and pack it, using local labour, and distribute the meat among the nomads. It is difficult to get to these people because of their lifestyle. But we must do all we can, because it would be a tragedy for the world if this way of life disappears."

The egunda takes place with a communal meal of rice, pasta and goat stew. Hamood Hanjan apologises that the feast is not as lavish as in the past. His son is named Ahmed Baturi, partly in honour of the visiting journalists- "baturi" apparently means foreigners.

Ahmed Garidh, the ailing chief, is asked whether his grandson will continue the Tuareg tradition. "How do I know what the future will bring?" he replies. "I do not know what will happen even tomorrow, let alone the day after. We are used to hard times, but now it seems we are living in cursed times."