HARARE – THE drought that has plagued southern Africa for months has wiped out crops across Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, causing an intense famine that has already killed hundreds of people since early 2002.
In Malawi, where a state of famine was officially declared on February 27, at least 300 people have starved to death in the centre and north of the country since the beginning of the year.
And humanitarian organisations warn that it could be just the
beginning.
”Famine will be there until next year,” said agriculture ministry official Ellard Malindi.
President Bakili Muluzi has appealed to foreign donors for $21,6-million ($24,5-million euros) in emergency food aid.
The country’s maize harvest is nearly depleted, and the food crisis has been blamed in part on government corruption, following its decision to export 60 000 tons of the crop from strategic grain reserve silos to Kenya.
In the impoverished, landlocked African state, 60% of those in rural areas — where 90% of the country’s 11
million people live — do not have enough to eat.
In neighbouring Zambia, officials said that at least 33
people had died from hunger in two weeks in the southern Chikankata
region, and in the eastern Milanzi and Vubwi regions, which border
Malawi.
Zambia’s two year-long famine has been aggravated by the land
crisis in neighbouring Zimbabwe, which is no longer able to export
the staple grain maize to nearby countries.
The UN World Food Programme has said that more than 558 000 people are going hungry in Zimbabwe, which is experiencing its worst drought since 1992.
The central Midlands plateau area has not seen a drop of rain
since November.
Its reservoirs are empty, its harvests are dry, and an AFP
journalist in the area saw children vomiting after drinking water,
as they had not eaten in days.
But in this country, government and economic policies are as
much to blame for the crisis as the depletion and drying up of the
maize reserve.
Many have said the food shortage has been aggravated by
President Robert Mugabe’s land reform program, after it was
launched in July 2000 in an aim to resettle blacks on white-owned
farms.
In a country where inflation stands at 120% and poverty
touches 80% of the population, finding food is becoming an
often impossible feat.
The famine has spread across southern Africa, affecting tens of
thousands in Mozambique, according to the World Food Programme, and
further tens of thousands in Swaziland, according to the country’s
natural disasters official, Ben Nsibandze.
”If the situation does not improve in the next three months,
hundreds of people will die of starvation related ailments,”
said Nsibandze.
Drought has even spread to South Africa, according to its
National Association of Maize Millers.
But the country’s advanced infrastructure, including its
irrigation, stock, and transport facilities, should allow it to see
the crisis through.
Nonetheless, its annual maize production this year should reach
five million tons, leaving just one million tons for export — not
enough to feed the thousands who could die of starvation across
southern Africa. – Sapa-AFP