National emergency as famine grips Zambia

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has declared the nation’s food crisis a national disaster and asked for urgent international aid to help the four million people threatened with starvation.

In a TV address to the nation, Mwanawasa said this year’s poor corn crop - less than half of what was needed to feed the country - would run out by August.

He banned the export of corn and encouraged subsistence farmers to keep as much of their recent harvest as possible in reserve ‘‘for the hard days ahead.’’

‘‘Let us face this adversity as a united people, and I am sure in unity we shall overcome,’’ Mwanawasa said.

Zambia’s hunger crisis stemmed from a drought that has affected many southern African farmers this year.

In Malawi, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Swaziland, about 10 million people are on the brink of starvation, UN food agencies said.

The recent harvest in Zambia brought in only 626,000 metric tons of corn, slightly less than half of what was needed to feed Zambia’s 10 million people, Mwanawasa said.