Saturday - July 28, 2007

Drought and Hunger in Southern Africa

Tiny Lesotho (read the CIA national description here) has been hit by a drought.  With a high rate of poverty and an incredible rate of aids, the tiny kingdom seems to be on the edge of disaster.

The impoverished African kingdom of Lesotho has declared an official food crisis after bad harvests left more than 400,000 people in need of food aid, a U.N. agency said.

The United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Lesotho's government had declared a food security emergency based on U.N. reports showing a "major food gap" affecting a fifth of the population.

"The situation is critical for those already living on the edge, struggling to cope with the combined impact of successive crop failures, poverty and HIV/AIDS," UN emergency relief coordinator John Holmes said in a statement late on Wednesday.

"The international community must respond rapidly to assist the government in averting a crisis," he said.

UNAIDS says about 270,000 people -- making up 14 percent of Lesotho's population -- are infected with HIV, giving it one of the worst AIDS crises in the world.

The food crunch was triggered by the country's worst drought in over 30 years, which OCHA said had cut the staple maize crop harvest by more than 40 percent.

Author: The Machiavellian
Technorati Tags: Africa Lesotho
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