Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa on Monday declared a national disaster and appealed to the international community for food aid after government estimates showed that 1,2-million people face famine.
Mwanawasa said he will abide by a parliamentary resolution passed last week that urged the government to declare a national disaster over the food shortages affecting the country of 11-million.
”Parliament in this country is a highest body. I therefore declare a national disaster in so far as food shortages are concerned,” Mwanawasa said at Lusaka airport.
”I therefore appeal to the international community for help,” he said before departing for Malta to attend the November 25 to 27 Commonwealth summit.
Zambia became the second country in drought-hit Southern Africa to declare a national disaster following Malawi, which made the appeal on October 15.
Zambian opposition lawmakers presented a motion last week that won unanimous support, urging the government to declare the food crisis a national disaster.
The government admitted last week that about 1,2-million Zambians face severe food shortages due to drought and appealed for $18-million in aid to tide over the crisis.
Agriculture Minister Mundia Sikatana recently told reporters that the country was not facing any food shortages and that his government had secured enough food to feed those affected by hunger.
Zambia has only allowed the import of 200 000 metric tonnes of maize into the country as a precautionary measure, though it insisted that the country has adequate food to feed its people.
The price of cornmeal, the national staple, has skyrocketed in recent months following shortages of maize in the local market.
Zambia is one of six countries in Southern Africa facing a food crisis following a drought that has cut maize production and Aids that is driving the most vulnerable deeper into poverty.
Malawi is the worst hit in the region, with up to five million out of the country’s 12-million people in need of food aid, while four million are hungry in Zimbabwe as are hundreds of thousands more in Lesotho, Mozambique and Swaziland, according to the World Food Programme. — Sapa-AFP