Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Lilongwe (Agenzia Fides) - “After so many promises saying that famine was now something of the past, we now see the hard truth reemerging in our day-to-day lives: all of a sudden the newspaper says that the tragedy is a proverbial land mine waiting to explode in the long months preceding the new harvest. There is a lack of food.” This is what Agenzia Fides was told by Fr. Piergiorgio Gamba, Monfortian missionary who has been working for decades in Malawi, from Balaka, midway between the two large cities of Blantyre and Lilongwe. “It has been an emergency situation since December, that is to say, right before the months of January-March, often called the months of famine.”
“20% of the population is surviving on the mango trees, which are still fully in bloom. This will last another two or three weeks, until the last tree has yielded all its fruit. And then what?” the missionary asks.
“In the District of Balaka alone, there are 21,000 families that are currently affected by the crisis that is affecting nearly 1,000,000 inhabitants,” Fr. Gamba said. It is a troubling sign, considering that Malawi, thanks to agricultural funding, in the last two years it was able to overcome the severe shortages in 2002-2005, and even become an exporter of agricultural goods (see Fides 4/12/2007). However, two extreme environmental conditions – drought and heavy rains – in recent months have led to another food emergency, as well as for the fact that Malawi does not have sufficient aqueducts and dykes to conserve and distribute water.
“Once again, the country is having to back down and admit its persistent poverty that continues to put a damper on attempts for progress and food self-sufficiency,” Fr. Gamba commented. “The prices continue to rise at an uncontrollable rate...the price of grain is normally 2,600 kwacha for a sack of 50 kilo., but now it can only be found at 4,000 kwacha, a price which is practically impossible for the majority of the population to pay.”
Thus, Malawi's people are expecting a difficult Christmas. “The only hope that remains is rain, which could bring a quick harvest to overcome the famine. Famine is a disaster that literally leads the people into a kind of despair that is only understood among the people themselves, who forget their songs and festivities to go into the jungle in search of some edible plant,” Fr. Gamba concluded. (LM) (Agenzia Fides 5/12/2008)
