 | Map of Madagascar
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Madagascar’s key feature drives from the geological events of its formation: separated from Africa 165 million years ago, it resembles a small continent in its own right, with unique flora and fauna. Its environment conserves 90% of known species of lemur and one quarter of all Africa’s flowering plants. The real emergency in Madagascar is malnutrition, increasing at a worrying rate, which kills 100,000 children under 5 every year.
Tuberculosis, leprosy, malaria, hepatitis and bilharziasis are endemic, further reducing life expectancy.
75% of the population lives below the poverty line, in sickening contrast with the flourishing flora and fauna of Madagascar’s natural environment.
|  | | Madagascar’s shoreline with its beaches of the whitest sand | A spectacular sunset |  |  | | Children weakened by under-nourishment | A family outside their shack at Tulear |
 |  |  | A girl washing her hair
| Street children
| An under-nourished child |
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