ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — Parched by four years of drought, more than 1.1 million people in southern Madagascar urgently need food aid in a rapidly worsening crisis, experts warn.
About 700,000 people are already receiving food aid and increased emergency assistance is needed, according to World Food Program (WFP) which is working with the Malagasy government and other humanitarian agencies.
“Harvests fail constantly, so people don’t have anything to harvest and anything to renew their food stocks,” Alice Rahmoun, WFP’s communications officer in Madagascar said.
More than 90 percent of the population in Madagascar’s “Deep South” region lives below the poverty line, making families extremely vulnerable, according to Amnesty International.
“All aid agencies are working together to try to prevent this crisis from turning into famine,” Jean-Benoît Manhes, deputy representative of United Nations Children’s Fund in Madagascar, told The Associated Press.
“But we are witnessing a deterioration which requires increased resources,” he said. “To give you an idea, in the months of July and August, 14,000 children were treated for severe acute malnutrition. That is usually the number we treat in an entire year.”
The four consecutive years of drought have wiped out crops and exhausted the food reserves of the farming communities of Madagascar’s “Grand Sud,” or Great South, he said.
Southern Madagascar is used to dry seasons, usually from May through October, known as kere in the Malagasy language when fields are dry and food is short, but this year is much worse, say local farmers.
The ground is so hard that it’s difficult to plant crops of corn, rice and cassava that are traditionally started in November. (AP)