East Africa's famine victims 'on their last legs': UN

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2006

BONN (AFP) — An estimated 11 million east Africans facing drought-induced famine will not survive without urgent food relief, a spokesman for the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation said.

"It is real crisis. The drought began late last year and they are on their last legs," said Henri Josserand, the spokesman for the organisation's early warning service.

Meteorologists have predicted that the region's short rainy season in May may not see enough of a downpour to break the drought, he added.

"The forecasts are not optimistic. In the best of cases, this will last until the end of May. In the worst, it will last another four to five months," he told AFP on the sidelines of the UN's third conference on early warning systems in the western German city of Bonn....