Reuters AlertNet – SWAZILAND: Drought, hunger and AIDS, but still coping: “Jameson Ginindza, director of the National Disaster Relief Task Force, said the number of Swazis receiving some form of food assistance had risen by one-fifth since the beginning of the year, to a historic high that, by mid-April, surpassed earlier projections for Swaziland’s food needs.

‘The original number of people needing food aid was estimated to be 245,000 at the time the harvests are due, which is now – these were people mostly in the southern and eastern regions – but a severe storm in January devastated the middle region of the country, which is our agricultural heartland, and suddenly there were over 80,000 new people in need,’ Ginindza explained.

In a national population thought to be slightly over one million, the disaster relief task force has estimated that about 330,000 people require some form of food assistance.”