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7-10-2005 Scotsman Months after Scots mission famine-hit Malawi needs help By Gethin Chamberlain Chief News Correspondent FIVE million people are facing starvation in Malawi, the poor African nation "twinned" with Scotland. Aid agencies yesterday warned it would be hit by the humanitarian crisis sweeping southern Africa as malnutrition rates rise. The first deaths have already been reported. Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique are also badly hit and the United Nations has appealed for millions of pounds worth of donations to avert a disaster which could eventually affect a total of 12 million people. Just months ago, Scotland's historical ties with the poor nation were reinforced with a mission led by Jack McConnell, the First Minister. Scotland pledged to help health and education in the poverty-hit nation. Yesterday, the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) said it remained dollars 180 million (GBP 100 million) short of the dollars 400 million it estimates it needs to feed those affected. The UK donated GBP 5 million in response to a flash appeal for GBP 50 million, but other money has been slow to arrive. The crisis has been blamed on the failure of the rains, coupled with an AIDS pandemic which has decimated families, orphaning many vulnerable children. It comes just months after the world woke up to the devastating famine in Niger. Yesterday, Oxfam, one of the aid agencies trying to get food to those in need, warned that action was needed urgently to avoid a repeat of that crisis. Malcolm Fleming, of Oxfam Scotland, said: "Time is ticking away and people are struggling to survive already. They don't have the ability to cope with a food crisis." He said the signs of a looming crisis were plain to see. Some children had already died from eating poisonous roots which they had been forced to scavenge after food ran out. "When Niger came to the public attention, people were asking why wasn't anything done to prevent it reaching that stage," he said. "Well, that is what is happening now in southern Africa. We have to learn the lessons of Niger." Malawi's main opposition party has warned that the country is heading down the same path as Niger and called on the president, Bingu wa Mutharika, to take urgent steps to address the crisis. Sam Mpasu, of the United Democratic Front, said: "Malawi should press the panic button and raise the alarm. The president should declare a state of national disaster. "Malawi will soon resemble images of Niger as people die of diseases related to malnutrition. We need to put our act together and purchase all the food now if Malawi is to avert the Niger scenario." James Morris, executive director of the WFP, warned that the looming famine had now displaced Darfur as the "most serious humanitarian crisis in the world". Mr Morris said the situation was likely to be worse than three years ago when the region was last hit by a food crisis. Governments and aid agencies estimate some 12 million people will need food hand-outs for six months until the next harvest starts in April 2006. Gareth Thomas, the UK's international development minister, said yesterday that other countries needed to do more to help. Britain's donation of GBP 5 million to the UN's flash appeal amounts to a third of the total donated, which is a mere GBP 15 million of the GBP 50 million needed immediately. Mr Thomas, who was visiting Malawi to assess the scale of the crisis, offered praise to the country's government for purchasing 60,000 tonnes of food, but said others had to honour their pledges. Mike Huggins, regional spokesman for the WFP, said that it would take GBP 225 million - an amount dwarfing the Niger appeal - to purchase the food needed to sustain the population. Mr Huggins said the agency remained around GBP 100 million short of its goal despite having warned about the impending crisis for months. Antonella D'Aprile, of the WFP, said that people in Malawi had simply run out of food earlier than usual and in some places were risking their lives to harvest water lilies from the country's marshes to keep themselves alive. "Usually the hungry season only begins in December, but we need food urgently now," she said. "People are already eating water lillies and they are risking attacks from crocodiles when they collect them. They are desperate." Poor rains in many parts of the region have left much of the staple maize crop stunted and withered on the stalk, not least in Zimbabwe, whose once flourishing farm sector is in crisis. It has been exacerbated by the AIDS pandemic, which is killing off much of the rural workforce and leaving many peasants too sick to farm the land. Farmers in densely populated Malawi have sown crops on steep hillsides, leading to erosion that results in fertile soil being washed down its rivers to the sea. Some five million Malawians - almost half the population of one of the world's poorest countries - need food aid, and malnutrition levels are rising alarmingly. Some Malawians have already died after eating inedible plants to stave off hunger pangs, according to rural residents. The International Red Cross added its voice to the global appeal for aid on Wednesday, saying it urgently needed GBP 15 million to help feed the needy in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Ironically, South Africa is sitting on a mountain of expensive maize which it cannot sell. South Africa's Crop Estimates Committee said last month its projection for the 2005 maize crop was unchanged at a bumper 12.18 million tonnes, which is expected to leave a surplus of 5 million tonnes.
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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