Food crisis in southern Africa as drought threatens 10m people

ACROSS southern Africa, some 10 million people - many of them battling HIV and chronic poverty - could face serious hunger by the end of the year, according to the UN.

For villagers in drought-hit southern Mozambique, this year’s food shortages are the worst in living memory, but aid workers fear the world may not respond in time.

“If the situation continues like this, we could die,” says 43-year-old mother of six Beti Samuel Gueba, pointing to her empty granary in the hamlet of Songuene. “If it is like this now, what will it be like in the coming months? I do not know.”

Relief workers warn of a repeat of events in West Africa’s Niger, where 3.6 million face food shortages. Donor countries have boosted aid to Niger in the past month following increased media coverage sparked by last year’s drought and locust invasions, but experts say an earlier response could have averted the crisis.

Mozambique’s drought is patchy, with some areas enjoying good rainfall or able to use old Portuguese colonial-era irrigation schemes to boost production.

However, in Guija district, 200km north of the capital Maputo, only 2% of April’s harvest was usable.

The problem goes beyond Mozambique. Much of neighbouring Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi are also facing shortages, with AIDS adding to the problem.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has described the combination of chronic poverty, food shortages and HIV infection rates of more than 20% in southern Africa as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

But attempts to raise donor cash have largely failed, with funds channelled instead to more high-profile crises.

Of the €206.8m the WFP says it needs to scale up feeding programmes to deal with the crisis between now and next June, when it hopes the harvest will be in, it has only raised €127.5m.

“I go into a home and they tell me there are 10 children,” said Sam Kaijuka, a Ugandan aid worker with US religious agency Samaritans’ Purse, WFP’s partner organisation in Guija.

“There is only money from WFP to feed three. I tell them to give me the three that are most deserving. That makes people very hostile.”

Donations may flow in as shortages become acute later in the year during the “hungry season”, but by then it may be too late.

“We need donations now so we can get the food in place by the hungry season later in the year,” said WFP spokesman Mike Huggins. “Last minute is no good if we want to avoid a Niger-type situation.”