Drought has hit Swaziland and that threatens to result in zero crop yields in 25% of the country, the United Nations’ Integrated Regional Information Networks (Irin) reports.
At present about 245 000 Swazis — a quarter of the kingdom’s population of 950 000 — are receiving food relief.
”The current serious drought, which seems to be the worst in recorded history, threatens severely diminished harvests and serious water shortages in large parts of the kingdom,” said the chairman of the National Disaster Relief Task Force Ben Nsibandze.
A hot spring season was followed by two weeks of high temperatures and low rainfall in December.
This coincided with the first appearance of young maize plants, the Swazi staple crop. The heat wave was seen by the disaster relief task force as a harbinger of crop problems ahead.
The task force is assembling government bodies and non-governmental organisations in the meteorological, agricultural and humanitarian fields to deal with what Nsibandze called an ”unfolding emergency”.
Swaziland’s eastern Lowveld area has suffered diminished rainfall for a decade, and has not recovered from a prolonged drought in 1992-1994 that rendered much of the eastern Lubombo Region uninhabitable, the Irin report said. – I-Net Bridge