A record 45 million people are at risk of starvation in southern African countries due to drought, floods and economic hardship in their countries, the United Nations alerted on Thursday.
"This hunger crisis is reaching unprecedented proportions and our observations on the ground show that it is going to get worse," said Lola Castro, regional head of the World Food Program (WFP), in a press release.
Increasingly violent climatic events
For the past five years, the entire southern tip of the African continent has suffered from a significant deficit of rains, aggravated by the repetition of episodes of the climatic anomaly known as El Nino, which weigh on the agricultural crops of its sixteen countries, mostly very poor.
Global warming temperatures are also causing increasingly violent storms or cyclones. Cyclone Idai last year caused catastrophic floods in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, killing more than a thousand, millions of people affected and massive damage, including to food supplies.
"The cyclone season has started, we cannot afford to repeat the damage from last year," said Lola Castro. According to WFP, temperatures in the region are increasing at twice the rate observed on the planet. Again this year, forecasts anticipate a dry and hot weather, suggesting a new poor harvest.
Urgent appeal for international solidarity
Many families across the region have already been forced to skip one of their daily meals and are only surviving on emergency assistance. This year, WFP plans to help 8.3 million food insecure people in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Madagascar, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini and Malawi.
The most worrying situation concerns Zimbabwe, where WFP estimates that nearly 8 million - half the population - are at risk of starvation. "Zimbabwe is one of the four countries in the world with the highest food insecurity," said UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Hilal Elver, at the end of November, visiting the country.
The country has been stuck for twenty years in a catastrophic economic crisis that President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who succeeded the autocrat Robert Mugabe at the end of 2017, has failed to stem.
For months, the population has suffered shortages of recurring basic products, flour, medicines, fuels, and massive power cuts that have made the daily lives of many a nightmare. A year ago, the rise in gas prices had caused deadly riots, severely repressed by the regime.
Other countries most at risk include Lesotho, Namibia and Zambia, where the Red Cross recently estimated 2.3 million (out of a total of 17 million) the number of people experiencing "severe food insecurity" ". The UN agency repeated on Thursday its urgent appeal to the international community and donors, saying that it currently has only 205 of the $ 489 million needed to finance its emergency aid projects.
"If we do not receive the necessary funds, we will have no choice but to help fewer people who need it, by giving them less," concluded Lola Castro.
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