JOHANNESBURG - Drought has raised the spectre of famine in impoverished east Africa as aid agencies scramble to provide food aid to around 12 million people in the continent's south after staple crops failed there last year.
But good rains have been drenching much of southern Africa in recent weeks, raising hopes that this season yields will be better -- though it remains early in the growing season with the first harvests not due before around April.
The UN said on Monday it needed nearly $240 million to feed at least 10 million people this year in West Africa, where crops were ravaged by drought and locusts last year.
Mother Nature is not the only source of food woes.
A raging AIDS pandemic which is killing much of the rural workforce, plus poor farming practices leading to soil erosion have hit food output and increased poverty.
In countries such as Liberia, years of vicious conflict have exacerbated the situation.
Following are facts and figures based on estimates derived from the U.N's World Food Programme (WFP), other aid agencies and national committees.
EAST AFRICA:
KENYA: In East Africa's biggest economy an estimated 2.5 million people are in need of food aid. In one of the most visible signs of a searing drought, nomadic Maasai herdsmen are driving starving cattle into the capital Nairobi to feed on well-watered lawns.
SOMALIA: An estimated 1.4 million people in the anarchic Horn of Africa country require urgent food relief.
ETHIOPIA: The country that pulled the world's heart strings during an appalling famine two decades ago has 1.75 million people in need of emergency food aid, adding to 5.5 million already getting food shipments.
DJIBOUTI: Aid agencies say they need to feed 600,000 people in this poor Horn of Africa country.
WEST AFRICA:
NIGER: Niger is the worst-hit country in the region with a food crisis affecting more than 3 million people.
LIBERIA: In Liberia, WFP is feeding about 700,000 people as the failed state emerges from years of brutal conflict.
IVORY COAST: WFP is targeting nearly 1 million food-insecure people there.
SOUTHERN AFRICA:
MALAWI: One of the hardest hit countries; some 5 million people, almost half the population, need food aid until April.
Malawi has been hard hit by AIDS, is densely populated by regional standards and suffers from widespread soil erosion.
ZIMBABWE: Aid agencies estimate that 4.3 million people, one third of the population, will need handouts until April.
LESOTHO: The WFP estimates that 550,000 people face significant food shortages until April and that it needs more than 20,000 tonnes of maize to feed them.
Lesotho's cereal output is in a downward trend because of long-term soil erosion, erratic weather and the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
SWAZILAND: An estimated 230,000 people, nearly one quarter of the country's population, face severe food shortages.
ZAMBIA: WFP says it is feeding 1.1 million people in Zambia but 1.4 million people need food aid. After a good 2004 harvest, a prolonged drought severely reduced last year's maize crop.
MOZAMBIQUE: WFP says 850,000 people there need food aid.
Reporting by Africa bureaus
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
