It's midday and, for a pale boy from Northern Ireland, almost unbearably hot. In front of me is a group of 80 African women, some heavily pregnant, others carrying young babies, strapped to their backs with a papoose. We're in the courtyard of a health centre in south Guinea and the women are queuing up to see a nurse and pick up a mosquito net. Malaria is the biggest killer of children under five in Guinea and the nets form a vital defence. It's quite simple, I've been told: children whose families have the nets normally survive, those who don't get sick and die.

I watch as, one by one, the women file into a room, see the nurse, hand over their children for an examination and collect a net, folded up in a blue protective Unicef bag. Many of the women have walked up to 10 miles to get here, but, despite this, the queue is orderly and the atmosphere calm.Then something changes. Word has passed down the line: 'They're running out of nets.'The queue breaks up and people start pushing and jostling for position.

'Donnez-moi un filet,' the women shout in heavily accented French.'Give me a net.'

They barge their way in, shoving a young Guinean man to one side. Babies are screaming. Everyone is stretching their arms out towards a cardboard box where the nets are stored. But the box is empty and they grab at fresh air.

It's a desperate and humiliating scene. Realising that all the bags have gone, some of the women turn towards me and my camera crew, looking bewildered.'Where's ours?' they ask.'Where are our nets?'They're still standing there a few minutes later,when we climb back inside our tiffany heart pendant 4x4s and prepare to leave. I feel useless - a common reaction to events in Guinea - but I'm told there is nothing we can do.As we drive away I wonder: 'What will happen to them? What will happen to their children?'

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Our man in Conakry

I arrived in Guinea the night before.A UK Ambassador for Unicef, I'd been sent to make a film about malaria - the lives it claims and what can be done to help. It wasn't a country I knew much about - it is a former French colony and has stronger ties with France than Britain - but the history was depressingly familiar.

Rich in minerals, particularly gold, diamond and bauxite,which is used to make aluminium, the country has suffered at the hands of a series of repressive leaders and, recently, a military junta.While those in power have got rich, the vast majority of the adult population survives on less than $1 a day and lives without proper sanitation, clean water or regular electricity. Most are illiterate and nearly a quarter of the population dies before they are 40.

As always, it's the plight of the country's children that makes the deepest impression on you. Every year,more than 50,000 children under the age of five die from preventable diseases like diarrhoea and malaria.That's more than five children dying every hour, needlessly. Of course, the country does receive international aid, but, because most aid is linked to political reform, Guinea receives far less than many other developing countries.As a result, it doesn't have enough money to provide its people with basic resources, such as mosquito nets, even though they cost a miserly Pounds 5 each.

This is where Unicef comes in, providing health care, education and other services to as many children as it can.My film was for Soccer Aid, a football match involving celebrities and famous ex- players,which will be shown on television next month.The aim was to raise fund
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