An emergency appeal has been launched Thursday by Tearfund for funds to provide food aid to the more than 11 million people throughout the southern regions of Africa facing acute food shortages.

|PIC1|Tearfund’s partners in the area have warned that the humanitarian crisis will worsen in the coming months if the international community does not act now.

According to the UN World Food Programme the worst hit countries are Malawi, with 4.6 million in need of food aid, Zambia at 1.7 million, and Zimbabwe at around 3 to 5 million people facing severe food shortages.

Other countries also affected by an impending food shortage are Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland.

“In the southern district of Chikwawa where we are working it has reached crisis proportions,” said Director of Relief and Development for Tearfund partner Living Waters denomination in Malawi, Victor Mughogho. “In some places as many as 70 per cent of households do not have enough food.”

Mr Mughogho said: “How they will survive in the coming months we do not know.

“We urgently need the support of people in the UK for funds but also for prayer. The people of Malawi are not sitting around waiting for help. They want to solve their own problems; it is just that their level of vulnerability is too high.”

|QUOTE|The approaching famine has been attributed to failed rains in the region, but also underlying causes such as chronic poverty, weakened agriculture and health sectors due to widespread HIV and AIDS, political inertia and inappropriate agricultural and economic policies.

The Christian charity has set aside £1.5million for its immediate response to Christian partners in the region already working alongside thousands of families.

The Tearfund partners across southern Africa will be responsible for bringing large quantities of the emergency food aid to thousands of people over the coming weeks and months, as well as seeds to be planted immediately in time for next April’s harvest.

“The urgency of getting help into the region quickly cannot be exaggerated,” said Gary Swart, Tearfund’s Southern Africa Regional Manager. “Villagers need food aid, seed and fertiliser to keep them alive and healthy, as well as to ensure a good harvest for the future.

“At the same time we are working to help people improve their own lives beyond this crisis, for example, through new ways of farming that will deliver better crop yields and mitigating the impacts of HIV and Aids,” said Mr Swart.

Those to feel the effects of the oncoming food crisis first are the most vulnerable, in this case the widows, orphans and people with HIV and AIDS.

|PIC2|Wizaki Joseph, 47, buried his 21-year-old daughter, Serena, just last week after the divorced mother of two was unable to find enough food to overcome hunger, despite the efforts of her family who begged and borrowed watery porridge from neighbours in the village of Fombe, in the district of Chikwawa.

Mr Wizaki and his wife Esnat have now been left with the responsibility of raising Serena’s two young children aged five and seven months. Mr Wizaki said: “I am old and my legs do not work well, so I cannot find work in other villages.

“My family is relying on relatives to provide us with porridge. I do not know what will happen to my family because if the rains do not come then we will just die,” he said.

The most severely affected in this latest humanitarian crisis are the people living with HIV and AIDS. In the village of Kasukwe, southern Zambia, where one in five people are HIV positive and there are 1.5million orphans, Elinah Habusala is struggling to look after seven children.

“My husband died of AIDS in 2002 and I think I am HIV positive but I have not been tested,” said Mrs Habusala.

“I am losing weight and feeling weak. I have five children of my own and two orphans to care for. There is no source of income for us so we are eating one bowl of porridge a day. If God allows it we will get some seed and have a harvest in April.”

Martin Phira, a relief co-ordinator with Tearfund partner Emmanuel International in Malawi spoke for those affected by the crisis when he said: “As Malawians we want to be self-sufficient and not relying on outside help, but it is one of the poorest countries in the world. At the moment it is important to keep people alive.”