Global Policy Forum

The tiny African kingdom of Lesotho declared a state of emergency on Wednesday and appealed for more food aid, saying thousands of people would otherwise face severe shortages because of prolonged drought. Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili said the mountainous territory's population of around two million required 57,000 tonnes of food products to feed some 600,000 people who would need aid until the 2005 harvest.

"The severe drought during the 2002/2003 cropping season led to untimely planting of food crops and the last winter saw neither rain nor snow throughout the season," Mosisili said, declaring the state of emergency during television and radio announcements.

The World Food Programme has helped to feed some 375,000 people in Lesotho over the past year, and estimates that as many as 700,000 will need food help in the coming year. Lesotho, which is surrounded by South Africa, lies at the heart of what aid workers describe as an almost unprecedented regional disaster that threatens more than six million people with severe food shortages.

From Zambia and Malawi to South Africa, rains have been inadequate and harvests meagre. In Zimbabwe, where an estimated five million people need food aid, the crisis has been exacerbated by President Robert Mugabe's policy of seizing white-owned farms to give to landless blacks.

Mosisili's appeal to donors was in addition to 32,000 metric tonnes of maize and other cereals the country requested in 2002. The drought, which began in Lesotho in 2001, has not yet been directly blamed for any deaths. But officials fear the situation could turn dramatically worse as rains fail, cattle die, stockpiles empty and aid falls short of expectations.

In many countries including Lesotho, agricultural production has been hit by Africa's devastating AIDS epidemic as farm workers fall sick and die -- leaving their families with nothing to sell but their farm implements. The water shortage has led many in Lesotho to draw untreated water from rivers and dams, exposing themselves to diseases like cholera, diarrhoea and typhoid.

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