Southern Africa gripped by famine

THE southern African famine has become so severe even mice are scarce in the region, aid agencies have said.

The tiny rodents, not normally considered a delicacy, are one of the last sources of food left, with one mouse being shared between a family of 10 in a dish known as African sausage.

Driven from the land by a lack of food, the mice are all but dead. Many people fear they will soon share the rodents' plight.

Latest figures show more than 18 million people in southern Africa face hunger, disease and death, according to the latest figures.

Without food aid and other assistance such as medical supplies and education, particularly to help them with agricultural skills many are expected to die before the end of the year.

The Southern African Development Community has calculated that 18.4 million people a quarter of the population face starvation.

In many parts of Malawi, a place many people in Britain still do not associate with famine, families are quite simply "at death's door", the relief and development agency World Vision says.

Latest figures show the average life expectancy rate in Malawi has dropped dramatically from the age of 45 to 32 because of the unprecedented levels of hunger.

The famine is so severe that 3.3 million (a third of the population) face death by starvation.

The recurring drought has left communities without food such as maize and a lack of Government assistance has left families relying on donations from non-governmental organisations and other countries such as the European Union and the US.

The country is prone to natural disasters such as drought and heavy rain, putting it in constant need of thousands of tonnes of food aid annually.

In Kanyopola Village, near Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, Levison Samalani, 46, was beaming with delight as he proudly displayed a mouse caught in a nearby field. The tiny mouse will be boiled and divided between his 10 young children who have not eaten for the last five days.

Cuddling up to his three-year-old daughter Folosi, who is so malnourished she can barely raise an arm to wipe the flies from her face and bloated body, he said he felt lucky to have to have caught the rodent.

Only four people in the village are officially entitled to 50kg bags of grain a month though the village chief divides the food among 240 locals according to family size.

Mr Samalani says although children in Malawi are all entitled to a free state education, many do not have the strength to walk to schools. Instead, they spend their days looking for food and eating beans from trees in the village, which are bits of wood not normally eaten.

He added: "We are not lazy people, we want to work and provide for our families. All we ask for is some seed and fertilisers to enable us to break free from this living nightmare and think of our long-term future, in fact a future at all."

Elsewhere in Malawi and two hours from Blantyre named after the birthplace of Scottish explorer David Livingstone's hometown near Glasgow starving villagers tell how 40 people in their community have died after being attacked by crocodiles while searching for food.

Hundreds of people, mainly women, put their lives at risk for six hours a day to go looking for a yam-like bulb of water lily called Nyika in Elephant Marshes in the Shire River.

Many people in Southern Africa are not only having to live with constant hunger and desperate search for food but a variety of other illnesses such as AIDS and pneumonia at the same time.

Village chief Richard Nyamulani revealed how men in the community, where the next harvest is not due until next April, were ashamed they are unable to provide food for their families.

He said: "AIDS and hunger has all but wiped out an entire generation here."

AIDS is still a major problem across Southern Africa and many youngsters have still to be tested to see if they have been infected and few still being taught about the dangers of unprotected sex.

World Vision has begun trying to tackle AIDS awareness across central Malawi with the introduction of a unique AIDS awareness project in Langa Village, which sees locals educated on the best ways to inform people on ways to avoid contracting the virus.