By Caroline Hooper-Box, Beauregard Tromp and Sapa-AFP
A mammoth relief operation is swinging into place to save millions of southern Africans from starvation.
In one of the biggest rescue operations yet seen in the region, a massive 12-deck ship, carrying 231 trucks destined to deliver food for southern Africans facing starvation, has docked in Durban and was being unloaded at the weekend.
Trucks and back-up vehicles from the ship are to be deployed throughout the region to rush food to famine-stricken people in their millions. At stake is the health of an estimated 13 million people facing famine in the wake of drought across much of the region, exacerbated by Zimbabwe's disastrous land-grab policies and the refusal of Zambia to accept genetically modified food aid for its people.
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Seven million people need food immediately The first public view of the international relief operation came in the form of the Haul Europe, the massive transport ship which dropped anchor in Durban harbour, completing one of the largest transport operations in food relief carried out by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
The ship has arrived in the nick of time. The United Nations, predicting that more than 300 000 people will die of starvation this year, is calling starvation the greatest threat to mankind after HIV and Aids.
The operation is part of a World Food Programme (WFP) project to roll out emergency food assistance to Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. A deadly cocktail of drought, flooding, misgovernment and devastated economies lies at the heart of the worst crisis to hit southern Africa since the 1991/1992 drought.
The donation of trucks, fuel tankers and mobile repair workshops, from the Norwegian government and Red Cross, came in response to the International Federation's appeal for $62-million (about R620 million) to assist with the food crisis in southern Africa. The fleet includes 203 M6 drive trucks, each capable of transporting five tons, which will enable the programme to deliver food already in Lesotho, Zambia and Malawi to those countries' remote, difficult-to-access rural communities, in all weather conditions. The fleet's 10 long-haul trucks are destined for Zimbabwe.
The Rome-based WFP has appealed for $507-million to buy a million tons of food to avert the food crisis in southern Africa until the main harvest in March next year.
Zambia will not accept maize from the US Grethe Stern, a spokesperson, said the International Federation hoped the transport package would have a snowball effect in bringing potential food sponsors from all over the world on board, augmenting the first consignments of food aid.
"We are going all-out to make sure that we have all the logistics and staffing in place to prevent large-scale deaths, but the Red Cross-Red Crescent and WFP both desperately need donors to respond much more quickly, in order to get enough food for the immediate months ahead," said Iain Logan, the International Federation's disaster operations manager.
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