[pronut-hiv] NAMIBIA: Hunger forces community to eat livestock feed

["ProNut-HIV" <pronut-hiv@healthnet.org>]

JOHANNESBURG, 14 Mar 2006 (IRIN) - Poverty and hunger were forcing
members of the San community in northeastern Namibia to eat livestock
feed, according to a relief official.

A government investigation into a news report in a local daily, The
Namibian, confirmed that members of the community, who live in western
Caprivi, had consumed contaminated rice collected from the floor of a
food warehouse, said Gabriel Kangowa, deputy director of the Emergency
Management Unit (EMU).

Kangowa, who conducted the investigation, said the 1,600-member
community had received food assistance earlier in the year and were told
that the spoilt rice was meant for their chickens and pigs. "But people
were hungry and the unemployment rate is very high in the area - they
had no choice but to also eat this rice," he told IRIN.

The Namibian quoted the State Veterinary Laboratory as saying that
tests had revealed that the rice distributed in the area was unfit for
both human and animal consumption. 

Drought in parts of the Caprivi Strip has severely affected subsistence
farmers and the EMU has stepped in with additional food aid to help the
community through the lean season until the harvest in May/June. "Each
of the 500 households in the region will receive 37.5 to 40 kg of maize
meal every month."

Hunger had forced children to stay away from school, said Kangowa. "We
found children who stayed without food for two to three days". The EMU
is to initiate a school-feeding programme to address the situation, and
government will also launch food-for-work programmes.

Drought-prone northern Namibia is battling with food shortages as a
result of 2005's poor harvest.