Cross worker was captured on 10 November 2009. Many NGOs and charities had started to restrict the areas covered by their aid work in Niger, Chad and Sudan, due to the ever-present risk of bandits and kidnapers. On 28 August, charities and NGOs put out food shortage alerts for Niger. Heavy rain falls on the border of the CAR and the Chad. 31 August saw 7,900,000 of Niger's 15,300,000 people in immediate risk of starvation and Gordon Brown MP making plans for a $100,000 charity speech on the development of irrigation and water schemes to increase cultivable land the Niger and the Chad. He was quoted to have said in the interview that: But, today, where there is suffering without hope, we can prevent children dying painful, avoidable deaths On 31 August Sudan's army reported that 3 Russian helicopter crew members had been abducted by gunmen in Nyala, capital of South Darfur, just hours after Samaritan's Purse aid worker Flavia Wagner who had been kidnapped 18 May was set free. She was taken from the South Darfurian village of Abu Ajura, along with two Sudanese colleagues who were also freed after a week. The governor of South Darfur, Abdel Hamid Kasha, Sudan foreign ministry spokesman Moawiya Osman and Samaritan's Purse's leader Franklin Graham, and the Russian ambassador to Chad welcomed Flavia's release, but condemned the kidnap of the three Russians and that of two Jordanian UNAMID police advisers in Darfur, on the 14th. Another Russian helicopter pilot was taken prisoner for four days after landing in South Darfur to take rebels' spokesmen to Chad for alleged peace talks. September On 1 September, aid agencies and NGOs called for aid to be given to Niger as 7,000,000 faced starvation. 4 September had Cholera outbreaks kill 41 in Chad and one in Nigeria. 8 September saw a Chinese CGC Overseas Construction Co. Ltd. oil worker kidnapped in Bahaï, Chad and took him to Sharq al-Teyna, in Sudan's Darfur region. On 13 September the Prem Rawat Foundation gave $30,000 loan to pay for Niger to buy food aid for children of its nomadic tribal groups. On 14 September heavy rainfall in central and southern Chad raised hopes that the major drought in Africa's Sahel region would be over by early 2011. 10,000,000 were near to starvation in the Sahel. The UN's WFP had estimated that Chad needs about 100,000 metric tonnes of food