|
Listen to article
|
A devastating drought has swept through southern Africa, leaving 26 million people struggling to secure enough food, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Wednesday. The prolonged dry spell has disrupted harvests and strained already limited resources, creating a dire situation that demands swift global intervention.
Highlighting the urgency, the WFP appealed for funding to avert a catastrophe, stressing that the humanitarian needs have reached a breaking point.
The situation has been aggravated by the El Niño climate phenomenon of 2023-2024, which has brought prolonged dry spells and disrupted rainfall patterns across southern Africa. With harvests still months away—expected in March or April next year—millions remain at the mercy of dwindling food supplies and rising desperation.
“Today we have up to 26 million people facing acute food insecurity in the region and this is because of El Nino-induced drought,” said Eric Perdison, regional director for southern Africa at the WFP.
Perdison identified the nations bearing the brunt of the crisis as Angola, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe—countries where food insecurity has reached alarming levels due to the unrelenting drought.
Preventing a dramatic escalation of the crisis will require an additional $300 million, the WFP cautioned. This funding is crucial to ensuring access to sufficient and affordable food for millions, as the risk of widespread hunger grows more imminent.
The unrelenting drought has driven five nations—Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe—to declare national emergencies in recent months, as the widespread loss of crops and livestock threatens both livelihoods and food security.
In many places, farmers who would normally be planting seeds at this time of the year, were not able to do so.
Read also: Biden Commits $1bn Aid To Africa During Angola Trip
“If you travel across the country, you will see almost all empty fields… The situation is really really dire,” said the WFP’s country director in Mozambique, Antonella D’Aprile.
“Communities have very little or almost nothing to eat,” she said, adding that “thousands of families are literally surviving on just one meal” a day.
Assistance “cannot wait,” warned D’Aprile. “The time to support is really now.”
In neighbouring Malawi, the WFP said it has had to import food to provide assistance due to the shortages.
“Nearly half the maize crops were damaged by El Nino drought earlier this year,” said the group’s representative in the country, Paul Turnbull.
Families were facing grim choices, he said: “Skipping meals; adults not eating so their children can eat; withdrawing children from school; and selling anything they have of value.”
Despite Zambia being “known as the food basket of southern Africa”, the country “stands at the brink of a hunger crisis,” said the WFP’s director for the country Cissy Kabasuuga.
In Namibia, an upper middle-income country, the situation was also dire.
“All 14 regions were impacted by the drought, of which there are some that have very worrying levels (of food insecurity) and that’s a very worrying situation for Namibia,” said WFP’s Tiwonge Machiwenyika.
The aid group’s representative in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) also joined the appeal for assistance.
The country has more than 25 million people facing emergency levels of food insecurity, said Peter Musoko, WFP’s representative in the DRC, with “no relief in sight”.
That was all “due to a cocktail” of conflict, climate extremes and health crises including outbreaks of mpox, cholera and measles, Musoko added.
As a result of those multiple issues, the WFP said it had also noted an increase in sexual and gender-based violence in the country and the opening of brothels around camps hosting displaced people.
US President Joe Biden on Tuesday during a trip to the region announced a $1 billion humanitarian aid package to 31 African countries, including for people affected by the drought.
