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Starving AIDS orphans set to double

    JOHANNESBURG

    In less than a decade, HIV/AIDS could leave some 20 million African children without parents to feed them, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has said.

    WFP has estimated that the continent's 11 million orphans already living without parents to cultivate crops could almost double in seven years.

    "If you go to a family that is touched by HIV/AIDS, the first thing they will ask you for is food to feed their family. Food is the critical ingredient in keeping an individual healthy to resist AIDS," WFP executive director, James Morris, said in a statement.

    The aid agency launched a US $308 million appeal early in July to fund 540,000 mt of food to prevent starvation in six African countries.

    However, Morris said WFP needed $1.2 billion more this year than last, with the 2003 African budget being bigger than the 2002 world budget.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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