Rome (Fides Service) - The World Food Programme has appealed for 78 million US dollars to guarantee emergency food aid to about 2 million people in Lesotho, Malawi and Swaziland, three small nations in southern Africa. According to the WFP in the early months of next year before the first April harvests, these countries will face a food crisis. January, February and March will be ‘hunger months’.
The WFP is already assisting hundreds of thousands of people in need of food because of drought and also because the HIV/AIDS epidemic has drastically reduced the number of people able to work in the fields. The governments of all three countries have appealed to the international community to provide food aid.
The last cereal harvest in Malawi was 17% below the average in the last five years. In Lesotho the winter maize harvest, already expected to be 68% lower than usual, was lost because of drought followed by torrential out-of-season rains. In the Lowveld area of Swaziland a delayed rain season and scarcity of rainfall produced a harvest 30% lower than average.
WFP says at least 127,000 tonnes or 78 million US dollars worth of food are needed to face the emergency. WFP calculates that in the first months of 2005 it will have to supply emergency food to 1,170,000 people in Malawi, 510,000 in Lesotho and 168,000 in Swaziland.
For 2005, WFP has also long-term programmes to assist hundreds of thousands of people in these three countries and in nearby Zambia and Mozambique. These are three-year programmes to help people in areas most affected by HIV/AIDS. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 30/9/2004 righe 30 parole 353)