Swaziland's AIDS Orphans Battle Drought, Hunger

Like much of southern Africa, Swaziland faces a food crisis due to drought. Although Swaziland's harvest is not as sparse as in neighboring countries like Malawi, the food shortage is mainly affecting the country's 80,000 HIV/AIDS orphans, who have no parents to grow maize or buy food.

Shortages in the country of one million people have been exacerbated by Swaziland's HIV/AIDS rate, the world's highest at roughly 40 percent of adults.

"The breadwinners are dying," said Abdoulaye Balde, head of the UN World Food Program (WFP) in Swaziland. "Even if the drought ceased, we would have only the old and the orphans to produce food."

Advocates and the government say drought is not new, but five years of it, coupled with the spread of HIV, has begun to whittle away the country's capacity to cope.

While aid workers note that most Swazis are much better off than the starving people of Niger, "The issue is breaking out of the cycle of hunger, dependency and HIV," said Balde. WFP and other nongovernmental organizations hope to work with traditional chiefs to revive a centuries-old community redistribution scheme, and WFP is lobbying the government to stop the state-owned maize-importing company from fixing prices too high for ordinary Swazis.

Widespread famine is unlikely, but many Swazis have too little to eat. "This has been happening for five years and it's only getting worse," said Sibongile Hlophe, secretary general for Swaziland's branch of the Red Cross. "We need a plan B, but no one seems to have one."

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