Some ‘snapshots’ of Swaziland as we enter 2009.
AIDS is having an unprecedented impact on Swaziland. Life expectancy has fallen from 60 years to 31 years, the world's lowest figure, and one in three children are orphaned or left vulnerable from AIDS. Last year, about 40 percent of the population needed food aid. Link
Minister of Finance Majozi Sithole says a deficit in the national budget cannot be avoided. People should cut down on alcohol use and other expensive habits for the sake of their families and themselves, he said. Link
Prices of essential food items have risen 10-40 percent in 2008. There are now meat shortages in towns. World Vision reports that many Swazis in rural areas are down to one or two meals a day. Link
About 70 percent of the people in Swaziland are hungry; 40 percent are unemployed. In this group are over 120 000 orphans and large number of HIV infected people. Close to 30 percent of the population and that’s almost 300 000 of the sexually active group. Link
King Mswati III said his subjects were lazy and needed to work harder to ensure this year’s harvest was big enough to feed all of Swaziland with enough left over to export to other countries. Link
Happy New Year
1 comment:
Happy new year! glad ur back
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