Africans on edge of survival

WIDESPREAD food shortages and rampant AIDS have put nearly 13 million southern Africans "on the very edge of survival," the United Nations has warned, appealing for an urgent $611 million in aid.

"There is still an opportunity to avert famine and to save lives, but this window is closing rapidly," UN Emergency Relief Co-ordinator Kenzo Oshima said.

"I call on the international community and the countries concerned to join hands with the United Nations in a partnership to avert another human tragedy on the African continent," Oshima, speaking on behalf of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, told a meeting at UN headquarters.

UN officials blame the crisis, the region's worst since a deadly 1992 drought, on a combination of severe drought, floods, economic decline and government mismanagement.

The famine has been aggravated by the residual debilitating effects of past conflicts and the region's extremely high AIDS infection rate, which has killed many farmers and left millions of orphans, the officials say.

The 12.8 million people threatened with starvation live in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and about half of them are children, the officials said. Other countries in the region are also threatened although to a lesser extent.

The $611 million in emergency aid would be devoted primarily to immediate food shipments, but the funds would also help prop up agriculture, health, nutrition, water and sanitation, education and child protection services, a UN statement said.

To help the region better provide for itself over the long term, Annan was naming James Morris, executive director of the Rome-based World Food Programme, as his special envoy on the humanitarian crisis in southern Africa, Oshima said.

Morris' task would be to travel to the region and work with governments to ensure a "coherent and complete response to the crisis," Oshima said. He would also work with international donors to ensure aid was used efficiently and went to those most in need.

The emergency appeal would funnel the most money $285 million to Zimbabwe, where severe food shortages caused by drought and government land seizures threaten more than 6 million of the country's nearly 14 million people.

Zimbabwe is also severely plagued by AIDS, which has orphaned some 600,000 of its children and infected more than 2.2 million of its current residents, according to UN figures.

Another $144 million would be earmarked for Malawi, where more than three million people will require food aid by the end of the year, the United Nations said.

Zambia, where some 2.3 million people need emergency food aid and water due to a prolonged drought, would be allotted $71 million. Mozambique, where some 70% of the population is living below the poverty line, would get $44 million in aid after floods and other natural disasters destroyed three or four consecutive years of crops in many areas, the UN stated. In Lesotho, earmarked for $41 million in emergency aid, about a fifth of the country's 2.2 million people require food aid.

About $19 million would go to Swaziland, where 21% of the population of one million need food assistance after two consecutive disastrous farming seasons, the world body said.

The remaining funds would be used to address the crisis at the regional level, it said.