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With food crisis worsening, Malawi pleads for aid

MANKHOKWE, Malawi - Dona Kijani dives into a crocodile-infested river for water lilies, dicing with death to pull up tubers that are barely edible and give her children diarrhea. She says it is her only source of food.

For Kijani and many others in the dirt-poor southern tip of Malawi, water lilies have become a staple part of the diet as drought withers corn crops, worsening a malnutrition problem aggravated by poverty, corruption and AIDS.

"I have nothing else to give to my children," the widowed mother of three said, holding some of the small, bitter-tasting, gnarled roots.

With the food crisis worsening, President Bingu wa Mutharika declared all of the southern African nation a "disaster area" Saturday and appealed for international help. He warned that 5-million people, almost half the population, are threatened with hunger.

Opposition politicians and civic leaders complained the declaration should have come sooner. But the president has been snarled in an impeachment battle with parliament leaders he has accused of hindering his campaign to clamp down on corruption.

Mutharika said the government would spend $50-million to import 330,000 tons of corn from South Africa but that Malawi needs an additional 158,000 tons to help feed people until the next harvest in March or April.

Kijani is among those who need help. "I'm desperate to be registered to receive food aid," she said recently while standing with thousands of others in front of a dusty warehouse hoping in vain to receive the 110-pound monthly corn ration.

The scene at the Mankhokwe distribution center was a microcosm of what is happening across southern Africa, where an estimated 12-million people will need food aid because of drought, mismanagement and disease.

Malawi, one of the world's poorest nations, is the worst affected in the region. The country is no stranger to hunger, but aid groups fear this food crisis will be the worst in a decade. Drought has been a blow, and with more than 14 percent of Malawians infected with the AIDS virus, many farmers are too sick to work.

Donors have provided $28-million for Malawi relief, far below the $88-million sought by the United Nations. Appeals for seed and fertilizer have gone mostly unheeded. Even once funds are promised, it takes four months on average for the aid to reach hungry mouths.

"Our window of opportunity to help Malawi and the rest of the region is closing fast," said Mike Sackett, southern Africa director for the World Food Program. "It will be too late once emaciated images appear on television screens," he said, alluding to the recent crisis in the West African state of Niger.

Corn still can be bought at Malawi's street markets, much of it smuggled from neighboring Mozambique. But prices have soared beyond reach of the poor. Most of the worst-hit villages in the south lie in a fertile river valley fed with water from Lake Malawi. But in a country where most peasants cannot afford even spades and wheelbarrows, farmers have no means to transport the water to their fields.

[Last modified October 17, 2005, 01:19:13]