Five elderly women in the Nsalitje area of Swaziland (eSwatini) have starved
to death and many more are said to be quietly being killed by
hunger.
An ongoing draught and restrictions on importing cheap
mealie maize from neighbouring South Africa are being blamed.
One resident told the Times
of eSwatini, ‘We are dying silently here while the government is only
concerned with protecting local produce, but not the lives of people who can’t
afford local prices of mealie meal. People are dying and others are flocking
the local clinics with ailments associated with hunger.’
The newspaper quoted a nutritionist saying, ‘I have
investigated the cases of the five elderly women, and the indication is that
they died of starvation. I discovered that these women stayed alone and only
relied on neighbours to get them bags of mealie meal whenever the residents set
out to South Africa to make purchases.’
The nutritionist said victims might die from as little
as three weeks or as long as two months of starvation, depending on
circumstances.
Local Headman Sipho Matse told the newspaper they died
of hunger, ‘simply because they couldn’t import enough mealie meal from the
neighbouring South African town of Pongola. That is where most residents living
closer to the southern borderline source mealie meal.’
He said the five women had tried to get mealie maize
from South Africa but had it seized by border officials because of a restriction
on the amount that could be imported from the country.
Matse said most people in the area relied on subsistence
farming but crops had failed in the drought. People had been forced to travel
to nearby South Africa to buy maize at affordable prices.
In
July 2019 a report stated more than 200,000 people which is one in five of
the rural population were experiencing severe food shortages and required
urgent humanitarian assistance.
The Integrated
Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) snapshot for the period up to
March 2020 stated, ‘In comparison with last year, the situation has deteriorated.’
It added, ‘This deterioration can be attributed to the anticipated drought,
which led to farmers choosing not to plant their fields, reducing casual labour
opportunities and food availability, with one-fifth of households depleting
their assets or engaging in crisis or emergency coping strategies to mitigate
moderate to large food gaps.
‘Between October 2019 and March 2020, around 232,000
people (25 percent of the rural population) are estimated that they will likely
experience severe acute food insecurity.’
In a
previous report the World Food Program (WFP) said it had fallen more than
US$9 million short in its fundraising to help ease the hunger crisis gripping
Swaziland. That amounted to only 47 percent of the US$17.4 million it hoped to
raise.
WFP gave no reason for its shortfall in funding but
there have been reports in recent years that international
donors are concerned about the lavish lifestyle of King Mswati III, who
rules Swaziland as an absolute monarch, and his family.
Swaziland is designated a ‘middle income’
country by the World Bank based on the Kingdom’s national income. The
problem in Swaziland is that this income is not evenly distributed among the
population. The King takes 25 percent of all mining royalties and controls the
profits of the conglomerate Tibiyo TakaNgwane. Officially he keeps these monies
‘in trust’ for the Swazi nation, but in reality much of it goes to fund his own
lifestyle.
He has two private airplanes, at least 13 palaces and
fleets of top-of-the-range cars. At his 50th birthday in 2018 he
wore a watch
worth US$1.6 million and a suit
beaded with diamonds that weighed 6 kg. Days earlier he had taken
delivery of his second private jet. This one, an Airbus A340, cost US$13.2 to
purchase but with VIP upgrades was estimated to have cost US$30 million.
Earlier
this month (November 2019) he bought himself and his wives 15 luxury
Rolls-Royce cars, estimated to have cost US$6 million.
A few days later Swaziland took delivery of a fleet of 84 BMW cars and
42 BMW motorbikes, which were reportedly for ‘escort duties’. The cost of these
has not been revealed.
See also
Oxfam
names Swaziland most unequal country in Africa on personal income
No
let up on poverty in Swaziland as absolute King makes public display of his
vast wealth
Lavish
spending leads to food aid cut
