{"id":24597,"date":"2016-04-14T04:18:19","date_gmt":"2016-04-14T04:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/malawi-declares-state-of-emergency-over-drought\/"},"modified":"2016-04-14T04:17:54","modified_gmt":"2016-04-14T04:17:54","slug":"malawi-declares-state-of-emergency-over-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/malawi-declares-state-of-emergency-over-drought\/","title":{"rendered":"Malawi declares state of emergency over drought"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{About 2.8 million Malawians face food insecurity, making country one of the worst hit in southern African drought.}<\/p>\n<p>Malawi has declared a state of disaster over worsening food shortages caused by a severe drought<br \/>\nas concerns grow over a hunger crisis spreading across much of southern Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Malawi&#8217;s maize production has dropped by 12 percent, leaving it short of about one million tonnes of maize needed to feed the population, President Peter Mutharika said in a statement on Tuesday. <\/p>\n<p>About 2.8 million Malawians &#8211; nearly 20 per cent of the population &#8211; face food insecurity, making the country one of the worst hit in southern and eastern Africa, where the current drought affects 50 million people, according to United Nation figures.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I declare Malawi [to be in] a state of national disaster following prolonged dry spells during the 2015\/16 agriculture season,&#8221; the Malawian president said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With the increased maize deficit, it is expected that an increased number of people will be food-insecure and will require humanitarian relief assistance for the whole 2016-17 consumption year,&#8221; he said. <\/p>\n<p>Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, and Zambia are also suffering food supply problems, while South Africa has said that the recent drought was its worst in more than 100 years. In Zimbabwe, 2.8 million people &#8211; more than a quarter of the rural population &#8211; do not have enough to eat.<\/p>\n<p>The UN and aid groups in Mozambique have released a total of $15m since the beginning of the crisis, said Michel Le Pechoux of the Humanitarian Country Team, which coordinates relief efforts. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But the response is still very limited compared with the actual needs, which amount to about $200m,&#8221; he told the AFP news agency, adding that central Mozambique was the worst-hit area.<\/p>\n<p>Malawi was hit by a drought linked with climate change last year, when flooding also hit its southern region. A new drought caused by the climatic phenomenon El Nino is now ravaging the country. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-11674 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/593634a410834cfb89e69c37cd887cb9_18.jpg\" alt=\"The number of Malawians facing food shortages could rise from the current 2.8 million to 3 million in 2016\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{About 2.8 million Malawians face food insecurity, making country one of the worst hit in southern African drought.} Malawi has declared a state of disaster over worsening food shortages caused by a severe drought as concerns grow over a hunger crisis spreading across much of southern Africa. Malawi&#8217;s maize production has dropped by 12 percent, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-24597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24597"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=24597"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=24597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}