UN warns of food crisis in Zambia

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http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=68&art_id=qw1130568487143B213

October 29 2005 at 03:07AM

By Alexandra Zavis

Johannesburg - At least 1.7 million Zambians need food and the situation is deteriorating rapidly, the United Nations food agency said on Friday.

"Villages are on the brink of widespread starvation," World Food Programme County Director David Stevenson said in a statement issued in neighbouring South Africa.

"There is no maize, wild foods are exhausted, and there's very little food aid on the way for the next six months unless the international community steps in now with cash to stave off a humanitarian catastrophe."

UN officials have been sounding the alarm about hunger across Africa, the world's poorest continent...