Crying through Nightline - Famine in Niger

Did anyone catch Nightline tonight?  I have never seen more horrifying images ... I didn't expect to be so shocked, figuring that I was somewhat jaded, but I have never seen more disturbing pictures.  Little babies, just skin and bones, and emaciated children with blood poisoning and sores all over.  

I burst into tears before the commercial break and cried throughout the rest of the footage from Niger.

Apparently the BBC aired a report last night, and it was the first Western journalist to film the problem.  Koeppel said Nightline saw the footage today and immediately cancelled their previously scheduled program, because they felt they had to show the pictures.  Cliche as it is, a picture really is worth a thousand words.  I've read about the famine here and there, on dKos I'm sure, but the horror of it didn't sink in at all.

The BBC has the footage:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4717907.stm

And the Nightline website has more:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=979480

How on earth could this have happened?  The head of the UNDP tried to explain that people just haven't paid attention, despite the fact that this has been going on for 6 months!  

Apparently last year's crop was destroyed by locusts, and things have gotten worse ever since.  They showed a family of six sharing a rat, their only food in 2 days.  

I honestly don't understand how the G8 meeting could happen and Live 8 could attract so much attention, but it took SIX months for the media to send a camera crew?  And no one listened to the UN?  

I don't really know how to end this, I feel horrible and wish there was something I could do.