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Malawi |
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IN the shade of the grass roof of a hut in a village at the end of a dirt road, in the heart of a country the tourist brochures call the warm heart of Africa, a young girl is dying. Madaloo James's eyes are bloodshot, her belly distended from the parasitic worms feeding inside her, her feet swollen from the oedema which starvation brings. Thirteen months old, she has weeks to live, perhaps less.
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FOR the people of Nyaika village in the south of Malawi, hunger means spending six hours a day up to their knees in a crocodile-infested marsh searching for the lilies which they will grind up into a sort of porridge which is the only food they have eaten for months. They enter the water knowing that at any moment they could be dragged to their deaths; 14 people from the village have already died this way. |
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Mice are all that's left to eat in this village and they are getting scarce FIVE of Levison Samalani's children are going to die. Folosi will be the first. And soon, maybe this week. Already she is hopelessly weak, her eyes unfocussed, sitting in the dirt pawing at the flies that torment her constantly. Three years old, and Folosi has had her last birthday. Emily, eight, will be next. Her fragility masked by her tattered dress and bright eyes, but betrayed by her discoloured hair, as sure a sign of malnutrition as any. Look closely. Emily, too, is swollen with worms, her feet scabbed. Regina, nine months old, Lifo, three and Chipiriro, eight, are little better. None of them has eaten for a month. Unless there is a miracle, they will not make it beyond February. In Malawi, there is another word for hunger - February. They speak the word nervously, according it the respect that a word synonymous with death can command, as if even the mention of its name will conjure up what they fear most. |
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Phikani is the oldest man in his village, a place where people have been reduced to eating mice and seeds. He has retained his dignity, his beard greying but neat, his clothes worn but expertly patched. His house is large compared to many of the others, several huts inside a straw palisade which also encompasses a stable for oxen and two round wicker maize granaries. All these are empty. He pauses, looks down: "We are finished, he says. People really know we are finished. We are greatly humbled. Everyone knows in this village that we are finished." |
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A deadly combination of killers "After my parents died, I stayed with relatives in another district. Most of the time, I have got malaria or a chest infection, but I am getting used to the illnesses," she says. "I was told in the hospital that I was sick. I was told I was suffering from what my parents died from. My father died from AIDS. I know that the same thing can happen to me, but I am not worried, I just like living like anyone else. I go to school, I am in grade four, but I don't think I'll finish school. Maybe I may die anytime." |
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Aid agencies warn four million may die as crisis looms in southern Africa AID agencies are warning of a fresh catastrophe looming in Africa that may dwarf the crises in Niger and the Sahel, putting four million lives at risk. Severe food shortages are beginning to hit southern Africa, with Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe worst affected. Some ten million people are reported to be facing severe food shortages, with the crisis set to peak between November and February. |
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Months after Scots mission famine-hit Malawi needs help 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. |
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