1.5m going hungry in Indian Ocean state

Southern Madagascar is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe, with almost 1.5 million people on the Indian Ocean island needing immediate food supplies, a United Nations agency said.

The World Food Programme, or WFP, said the crisis follows three years of drought that has hampered people's access to food, coupled with the economic hit from the coronavirus pandemic.

The agency said 10 districts in the island's south are the hardest hit, with families living only on mangoes and tamarinds. The crisis is affecting almost half the population in that region.

Mothers are now unable to breastfeed and have been instead forced to give their babies water.

The World Health Organization recommends that mothers should exclusively breastfeed infants for the first six months of life to achieve optimal growth, development and health.

An assessment by the UN agency in the district of Amboasary last month found that three out of four children had quit school, mostly to help their parents forage for food.

Urgent response needed

"The situation in the south demands an urgent response. People are left with nothing to eat and we must support them before it is too late, but for that to happen, urgent support from donors is needed now," Moumini Ouedraogo, the WFP's representative in Madagascar, said in a statement on Monday.

The UN agency needs $37.5 million to expand its response against child malnutrition.

Madagascar has the fifth-highest rate of chronic malnutrition in the world, at 47 percent, with half of children suffering, according to the United Nations Children's Fund.

"Families across these drought-afflicted areas are adopting desperate measures simply to survive, like selling precious belongings such as cattle, farm tools and kitchen utensils," Ouedraogo said.

In October, the agency began sending lentils, sorghum, fortified oil and rice for 320,000 people in the 10 hardest-hit districts, with hot meals for malnourished children and the elderly in Amboasary. However, the program has been hampered by funding gaps.

The UN agency is targeting 891,000 people by June next year through its program of food and cash distribution as well as malnutrition prevention. It also plans to roll out emergency school feeding, so that children can continue studying.

Madagascar is among the poorest countries in the world, with around 75 percent of the population living below the international poverty rate, according to World Bank statistics.