The Catholic Development Commission of Episcopal Conference of Malawi (ECM), (CADECOM) is calling for more support worldwide in order to combat the Famine problem the country is facing.
According to the Director of Social Development for ECM, Carsten Mulume, the commission needs the support of partners to provide support to starving families which their number is growing. Apart from this; he was urging the people to focus more on sustainable agriculture as it is one of the strategies that would help them alleviate the problem.
Speaking to the AMECEA Online correspondent, one member among the families affected said, “It is so terrible this year because we don’t have enough food to eat. Children are becoming malnourished and they are not able to go to school.”
Various reports state that almost four millions of Malawians are battling against severe famine due to scarce or no harvests caused by the El Nino and drought effects.
It is estimated that the number of hungry people is expected to rise to eight million (which is exactly half of the population of the country) by December 2016 if no strategic steps are taken to combat the problem.
In the meantime, food prices continue to rise as Malawi’s Kwacha continues to lose value forcing the poorest families to further reduce their already precarious number of daily meals, or sell goods in order to make ends meet.
According to a report by World Food Program (WFP) of May, 2016 most parts in Southern Africa will have poor harvest because this year was one of the driest year in history of the region; the area mentioned includes central and southern Malawi.
Shortage of food has led food prices to rise taking also into consideration that the Malawi’s Kwacha continues to lose value. Already some families by now live on one meal a day due to the inability to cope with the food prices in the country. “The current price of a 50kg bag of maize is almost 13 USD against the ordinary price of 2 USD. In a country whose citizens live below 1 USD, it tells you how worse the situation is,” read part of the report.