* * Famine is once again stalking Africa's poorest nations as new figures released on Friday show that the food crisis in Malawi is much worse than anticipated.
Aid agencies now say that at least five million people face starvation this winter.
The new figures are an increase of nearly a million on what agencies had previously expected in Malawi, a country in the grip of a severe drought and hamstrung by HIV/Aids. The food crisis here is replicated in five other southern African countries - more than 12 million people face chronic shortages between now and the spring harvest.
In Malawi, the ministry of health released data indicating that hunger across the country was rocketing.
Numerous food distribution centres in the country's south, the worst affected area, have also recorded large increases in the number of people asking for food who were not previously registered for assistance.
Thousands of hungry Malawians have been trying to get rations on the monthly distribution days. Many report they are only eating one meal a day or less.
The World Food Programme has been warning of the imminent food crisis threatening southern Africa for the past six months. But even they have been taken by surprise by the emerging scale of the problem.
'Rising maize prices and malnutrition rates now mean that more people than before will need help to survive the lean season,' said Mike Sackett, WFP regional director for southern Africa.
Food prices that usually rise from December up to the March/April harvest - when maize is scarcest and people have eaten their own reserves - have risen to levels not normally seen until January.
'Before this turn of events we already had a massive shortage of funds, so it's critical that donors redouble their efforts to ensure no one starves,' Sackett said.
Thousands of desperate Malawians turned up at the Mankhokwe food distribution station in the Nsange district last week.
Although food aid has been provided for those identified as in need by the Village Relief Committees, WFP officials say a funding shortfall of at least $70 million will have to be met by donors if the programme is to be effective until the next harvest.
'It can take up to four months to move food from abroad to the region so now it is crucial we receive cash contributions so we can buy food locally,' urged the WFP's Mike Huggins.
Weak from hunger and from standing beneath the blistering sun, Maria Binda told The Observer of her bleak future. 'I have nothing, no food or crops. Two of my children are dead from disease and my remaining child is very hungry. I need the food,' she said, pointing at the bags of maize stacked on top of each other at the warehouse inside the fenced compound.
The centre is operated by the non-governmental organisation, Goal, which ensures 50kg bags of maize are given to those in need. In the greater Nsange district's 18 other feeding centres, aid was provided for nearly 120,000 people in September and the numbers are rapidly rising.
Maria described how she was forced to harvest water lily tubers from the crocodile-infested Shire river as a means of feeding herself and her child. The small bulbs have little nutritional value, but in times of extreme need locals pound them into a porridge-like substance that has a bitter taste.
'The tubers are difficult to get as you must follow the stem of the lily down to the bottom, and you can only get one or two at a time as you run out of breath. You have to get someone to watch out for crocodiles and hippos, they are so dangerous.
'Two of my neighbours were taken [by crocodiles] last month, but without food this is what we have to do.'
The crisis affecting the region has been described as 'a new type of food crisis', one significantly different from that which gripped Niger and its neighbouring countries in West Africa over the summer.
The scenario has been labelled a 'triple threat'- where the drought problem is compounded by poor institutional infrastructure and the HIV/Aids epidemic.
Nearly 15 per cent - 1.9 million people - of Malawi's adults have HIV or Aids. It has been estimated that around 80,000 will die from Aids this year alone and another 110,000 will be infected with the HIV virus.
Many of those being infected are young men and women who, when healthy, would be able to tend to their small plots of land. However, because of the widespread illness, many people are not even attempting to grow food.
Unlike the Niger government's refusal to accept the scale of the problem affecting its people, the Malawi Prime Minister Dr Bingu wa Mutharika has gone to the UN to explain his country's plight.
Newly appointed Agriculture Minister Uladi B Mussa went as far as to say that if donors don't come through with the money then 'hundreds of thousands of Malawians will die'.
'We are not just asking for handouts. Malawians believe you must try to help yourself before you can ask anyone else and the people have contributed around 70m Malawian Kwacha (nearly £300,000) to the Feed the Nation Fund.
'But at this stage we need help and if there was a country on the moon we would accept assistance from it,' he said.
As always, the very young have been the hardest hit. Data compiled by Malawi's Health Ministry show that more than 1,000 acutely malnourished children were admitted to hospitals across the country in August, compared to 775 children in the same month last year.
However, the starkest difference between this year and last year is that there was more food available in villages 12 months ago.
In 76 nutrition rehabilitation units in the northern, central and southern regions, the number of admissions rose 15 per cent, 41 per cent, and 24 per cent respectively in August this year compared with last August.
James Juga will be one of the babies making up the next set of child hunger statistics to be released by the Malawian Health Ministry. The 18-month-old lost his mother to HIV/Aids last Saturday; he is severely malnourished and has been infected by the virus. His despairing grandmother took him to the small St Montfort Hospital near Nchalo village in the hope that his ailing body could be resuscitated.
'I am old so I cannot work. This is his only chance,' she said. At the Fatima Trinity Hospital in the south of the Nsange district the situation is the same. Here Cecelia Mota and her one-year-old have come for assistance.
When her husband took a second wife, Cecelia said he was unable to feed both families. 'He threw us out. I moved back to my parents but they have no food because of the bad harvest. There is no hope for me. We will both die if we leave here,' she said.
Although 85 per cent of Malawians earn their living through subsistence farming only 20,000 hectares out of 9.6m hectares of agricultural land is irrigated. A massive increase in the amount of irrigated land is being hailed by the Malawian government and NGOs operating in the country as the main solution to combating the affects of drought.
'The government is fed up with rain-fed farming; we must move to irrigating the land as we have a large lake and rivers that can provide for this,' said Mussa.
Looking at the weather predictions for next year it does appear to be the most viable option. According to long-range forecasts, a below normal rainfall across the southern half of Malawi is likely over the coming year.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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