African States ‘critical’

Press, 12 October 1985, Page 11

African States ‘critical’

NZPA-Reuter Nairobi A year after Africa’s food crisis was brought by television into the-living-rooms of the affluent, the situation is easing but five countries are still on the critical list, the United Nations says. Drought, the main cause of a catastrophe that left 150 million of Africa’s halfbillion people short of food, has eased because rain has fallen but 21 of the continent’s 50 independent States still need food hand-outs, the U.N. says. The Food and Agriculture Organisation in its latest review of African food needs, says that Ethiopia, Angola, Sudan, Mozambique and Botswana still need emergency food just to keep people alive. Congestion at ports and transport problems are making it difficult to get food to the needy. Emergency air drops and the. airlift of transport equipment is vital to minimise the loss of life in weeks ahead. The F.A.O. report is the tenth to be issued since the extent of the famine was broadcast in Britain through a television report from Korem, northern Ethiopia. Aid workers, African Governments, and donor countries said that their broadcast had opened the eyes of ordinary people and their Governments in the West to Africa’s agony. Money, private and public, poured in. A year later the rains have eased the pressure and the prospects for crops being harvested now or before the end of the year have improved in all but five States, the F.A.O. says.

On the credit side Lesotho, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Morocco, all of which needed food aid in the last eight months, now have no exceptional food requirements, the F.A.O. says.