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E NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1974

Cattle wading through a flooded area late last August In Upper Volta, on the southern edge of the Sahara, where drought has broken>  
Associated Pres

Rains in Sub-Sahara Area Raise  
Hopes for Good Harvests Soon

By HENRY HAMM  
Special to The New York Times  
Nov. 10, 1974

DAKAR, Senegal-The coun- sumed that several thousand  
tries below the Sahara that have died of hunger or of  
suffered from catastrophic fa- diseases they could not resist  
mine as a result of drought for because of their weakened  
the last two years are enjoying state. Most of the deaths have  
a normal autumn rainy season been in Chad, Niger, Mali and  
that promises reasonable har- Mauritania.  
vests in the weeks to come.

The crops will be far from Upper Volta, Senegal and  
sufficient for the population of Gambia, the other countries of  
25 million in the seven afflicted the Sahel - the geographic  
sub-Saharan countries, but the word for "fringe"-were less  
rains have revitalized the generally or less severely af-  
peoples' hopes for survival and fected.  
the confidence of the Govern- In all seven countries, which  
ments that they, in turn, can were visited in the course of a  
play a determining role. two-month tour, hundreds of

Although numbers may never thousands suffered hunger, ill-  
be known in a region in which ness, the loss of livelihoods and  
even the count of the living is  
tirely dependent on foreign  
funding and on the willingness  
of the member Governments to  
delegate powers to a regional  
organization.

Whether donor nations are  
willing to forgo bilateral for re-  
gional assistance and whether  
the Governments of the region  
are prepared to put aside differ-  
ences for common programs  
are questions yet to be an-  
swered.

With the rains' return, bring-  
ing harvests where there have  
been none for two years, there  
have been floods that make  
roads impassable and invasions  
of caterpillars and grasshop-  
pers and destructive birds.

Reflecting on nature's ap-  
parent anger at the region and  
its people, Mr. Dadji, the Sub-  
prefect of Mongo, in Chad, fell  
back on a proverb he heard in  
his childhood and had not re-  
called since he left for universi-  
ty training in France. "Illness  
comes at a gallop," he said,  
"and leaves at a slow walk."

far from established, it is as- Continued on Page 34, Column 1

-SCIENTISTS  
I told Warren Smith a year ago (for his new book "Predictions  
For 1975" that I would cause the above to happen, in  
Africa. It has happened.  
Owen