Hunger stalks Lesotho

Govt declares national disaster after low crop yields in kingdom.

- Butha-Buthe

In a parched village in the tiny mountain kingdom of Lesotho, a farmer tramps through his dusty plot and pulls desiccated stalks and roots from the dry earth.

The plot once fed Daniel Phoofolo's family, with enough produce left over to sell.

But a drought that has been biting countries across southern Africa for months has left it barren and bare.

Phoofolo's wife has gone to South Africa to find a job. He and his two small daughters have cut back to just two meals a day: bread and tea for breakfast and milk and mealie meal porridge for supper.

Wearing a torn jacket and gumboots, Phoofolo, 55, is visibly anxious. Beyond him lie fields of shrivelled maize wilting in a dry, brown landscape.