UN: Madagascar Droughts Push 400,000 Toward Starvation

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. World Food Program says southern Madagascar is in the throes of back-to-back droughts that are pushing 400,000 people toward starvation and have already caused deaths from severe hunger.

Lola Castro, WFP's regional director in southern Africa, told a news conference Friday that she witnessed "a very dramatic and desperate situation" during her recent visit with WFP chief David Beasley to the Indian Ocean island nation of 26 million people. Hundreds of adults and children were "wasted," and hundreds of kids were skin and bones and receiving nutritional support, she said. In 28 years working for WFP on four continents, Castro said she had "never seen anything this bad" except in 1998 in Bahr el-Gazal in what is now South Sudan.