Four million at risk of starvation - World - Malawi - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

National Catholic Reporter, May 10, 2002 by Gill Donovan

MALAWI: A widespread famine is looming in Malawi due to a chronic shortage of corn, a national staple, Catholic missionaries warned.

Unless international aid to the southern African nation is mobilized immediately, fears are growing that up to 4 million people will be at risk of starvation by next August.

Already this year, hundreds of people--mostly children and elderly--have died from malnutrition and related diseases. After initially denying the crisis, the government declared a national emergency and said 80 percent of the country's 10.5 million people were at risk.

With international aid agencies caught unaware, Catholic missionaries have been at the forefront of the relief effort.

"I have never seen anything like it. People have been streaming in to us looking for help. All they say is `njala'--hungry," said Sr. Agnes Hinder, a 74-year-old Medical Missionary of Mary who has worked in Matawi for almost 30 years.

Drought in some areas and floods in others hit last year's harvest badly. The shortages were exacerbated in October by soaring commercial prices, which the government blamed on regional shortages but which critics blamed on mismanagement of the national grain reserve.

Famished villagers started to eat anything they could find--pumpkin leaves, banana tree stems, even sawdust. Some children died after eating poisonous roots.

The U.S. government and the European Union have pledged to ship in 140,000 tons of aid. A small number of international organizations is arriving to provide localized help, mostly through church structures.

Briefs, gathered from news services, correspondents and staff, are compiled and edited by Gill Donovan.