THE village of Gumbi is semi-deserted, its people in rags and its larders bare. In the past few months there have been 17 deaths from hunger here. This should be harvest time, with the maize full in the fields, but the crops have either failed or been eaten unripe.
We find Evris and her four children drying their entire food stock on a rush mat. Three small bowls of maize and a cupful of husks is all they have until the next harvest, which may be nine months away.
Nearby, Justin and his family prepare their last meal. Drought, exorbitant prices and a lack of seeds have left them with nothing but half a small saucepan of maize and chopped leaves.
Half of Gumbi is roofless, the villagers having sold the timber, along with their animals. Those survivors who have not fled are weakening. “It is unimaginable what is happening here,” says Nacho, a volunteer who arrived three months ago to install solar panels at the nearby Nambuma health centre.
He is now helping to deal with a full-scale emergency. More than 30 children are in the centre. Several have died, others show all the signs of clinical malnourishment.
Famine is not mentioned, but is clearly present in many areas of the country. Officials believe about three million people are in grave danger and Malawi will need about 600 000 tonnes of food over the next six months to avert a disaster potentially as great as that in Ethiopia in 1984.
The few international bodies with people working in the deepest rural areas are very worried. “In some areas we know that thousands of people have run out of food and people never planted crops. There is real, immediate need now,” says Samson Hailu, director of Concern Worldwide.
Mtenga Wa Tenga hospital near Lilongwe has distributed £10 000 of maize donated by the Irish-based aid agency Concern. Like many other organisations, Concern is buying food where it can and running to catch up with the emergency that has been mostly ignored by government donors and international bodies despite strong warnings since November. United Nations agencies, the government and charities are hurriedly trying to establish which areas are most in need.
There is evidence of social disintegration and violence, classic signs of famine. “Men are leaving women, women are leaving their children. There is more drunkenness. Stealing food is now common,” says Sister Modesta at Nambuma. Thieves face summary justice. Several men have had ears and arms cut off, many others have been slashed with knives.
A dribble of help is starting to come. Groups such as Concern, World Vision, the Red Cross and the Catholic Relief Services are working together to develop food distribution plans. The UN World Food Programme, which feeds 500 000 Malawians each year, is coordinating the relief effort and importing 3 000 tonnes of food a month.
Meanwhile the heavily indebted Malawian government, criticised for not declaring a state of emergency until 10 weeks ago, can do little. Last year, under pressure from donor countries concerned that its emergency foodstocks were costing too much to keep and were rotting, it sold almost 160 000 tonnes of maize without keeping any in reserve or replenishing them. Maize prices tripled overnight and are now way beyond most subsistence farmers who make up 90% of Malawi’s 11-million population.
This week Malawi was told by the International Monetary Fund that it must cut its government budget further. The emergency is expected to peak after September when the food from this year’s harvest is exhausted.
Malawi’s situation is made worse by the fact that other countries in the region also face serious food deficits. The UN expects that more than three million tonnes of food aid will be needed this year to feed Zimbabwe, Zambia and other nearby countries.
Back at Nambuma health centre, Christine from Gumbi holds a malnourished child. The child will get better but the fear remains. “I will have nothing when I go back home. I fear it will happen again. I think this is the last year that I live.”