Heading for disaster as drought continues

With the winter harvest described as a failure and drought now affecting the summer cropping season, there is concern that Lesotho may be facing a humanitarian disaster. "The situation is not good. Estimates [are that] between 600,000 and 700,000 people will require food aid in coming months. The situation is worse than 2002 [the height of a food security crisis in the region], as at that time we were covering eight districts out of 10, and this year the indication is there might be more districts in need of food aid," World Food Programme (WFP) representative Techeste Zergaber told IRIN on Monday. Further cause for concern was the critical state of WFP's food aid pipeline. "The pipeline situation is very bad. Right now we have about 1,000 mt [of food aid] in stock and about 3,000 mt in Durban harbour [in South Africa]. Another 6,000 mt is expected, but this will not cover even one month's requirements. The situation is getting desperate and we really need people to help us make noise [about it]," Zergaber added. It was likely that the government of Lesotho would soon make an appeal for assistance. "[Last year's] winter harvest has to be forgotten - it was a complete failure. The problem the population is facing is that year in and year out, since 2001/02, they have been under stress, and the cumulative impact on the households is unfortunately not something that you can quantify in numbers and figures, but the pressure is very high. The nutritional levels of the population are falling and we have reported cases of pellagra in Thaba-Tseka district, in the highlands area of the Katse Dam," Zergaber noted. The continuing cycle of drought and crop failures was leading to ever-increasing vulnerability in Lesotho. "In May last year there was a [Food and Agriculture Organisation] FAO/WFP vulnerability assessment mission. At the time there was this expectation and euphoria that the emergency would be over in the [Southern African] region because of positive reports from Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique. So at that time, what they recommended was 35,000 mt [of relief aid] for 300,000 people in Lesotho," he explained. "That exercise was completed at the end of May, and people expected the rains to come. They did not factor in the winter drought, which has now gone into the summer cropping pattern and, in fairness, they could not have anticipated that. So those old figures were based on the anticipation that things would return to normal," Zergaber noted. With the summer cropping season in doubt, "at this point we are looking forward to April and May, in the hope that the winter rains will be normal and we can get out of the cycle", he said. The cumulative impact of the ongoing drought on people's ability to cope is something Zergaber has been trying to "sensitise donors to". Meetings have been scheduled with the government and donors, and "it is likely that very soon the government will make an appeal [for international assistance]. Some of the donors already have the position ... that it is a disaster situation", Zergaber said. The scale of the need is underlined further by the fact that Lesotho has a population of just over 2 million.