GAMULA, Swaziland, Dec 21 (AFP) - A lone herd of cattle, their ribs framing their skeletal bodies, roam restlessly, seeking a patch of green in the dry, sandy plains of eastern Swaziland.
"It looks like they're eating sand. There is isn't even food for the cattle here," remarked Pauline Njuguna, UN World Food Programme (WFP) field coordinator in the tiny mountain kingdom sandwiched between South Africa and Mozambique.
Njuguna is based in the capital city of Mbabane, a shangri-la surrounded by mountains and valleys covered in a green carpet of vegetation.
But on driving a few hundred kilometres (miles) east, the lush surrounds slowly disapper, the landscape become sombre, then in the bleak lowfeld areas the only splashes of colour are the bright-red "emaganu" fruit trees that flourish in dry conditions.
The yellow-brown, bare fields should have been covered by knee-high maize crops by now, Njugane said.
"It's a shame. These people have been ploughing their lands, but they can't plant anything. It's really a hard-working nation but the weather is failing them."
The latest UN figures put at least 265,300 Swazis -- in a population of one million -- at risk of starvation in the next few months due to drought-induced crop failures, Njuguna said.
The WFP has prepared to distribute almost 27,000 tonnes of food, sufficient to feed more than a quarter of the population from August this year to March next year, when the situation will be reviewed.
"To be honest, I think next year people will really be in trouble. The numbers are likely to double," Njuguna said.
In Gamula, a remote village in one of the drought-hit areas, lives a 46-year-old wheelchair-bound man with four children and his elderly mother.
"I am very scared because it is not raining and because I cannot take care of my children. This is what I worry about every day," said Juda Matsenjwa.
"This is the worst I've seen. Normally it at least still rains in December and the drought starts in January. But this year there has been no rain, nothing."
His mother, Lomphahlo, sits on a torn cloth in the dust outside a hut made of straw, eating a luxury item: white maize meal, cooked in a small black pot, enough for only one person.
"My brother's daughter brought it for me," she said smilingly, scooping up mouthfuls with her hand.
Njuguna explained: "The WFP distributes yellow maize meal (usually fed to cattle) in this area. Normally people don't like the yellow maize meal, but here they are so hungry they eat it."
Children are playing in and around the hut where beans are being cooked in a big pot on a fire, the smoke escaping from a hole in the roof.
In the shadow of a tree, a shelter from the scorching heat and dusty wind, stands a plastic pot with onion plants, and an old oil drum in which a hen is hatching half a dozen eggs.
Next to the hut is a field enclosed by thorn branches to prevent cattle from damaging the crops. Only, there are no plants to be damaged.
The family survives on food aid, and is being cared for by the frail Lomphahlo, who is not sure about her age, but thinks she is about 80.
"All this is my mother's burden," Juda Matsenjwa said with a distressed sigh.
But his children are still among the lucky ones.
A few kilometres (miles) farther on live a 16-year-old girl and her 14-year-old brother whose parents have died of AIDS-related illnesses.
They care for themselves.
Njuguna said: "HIV/AIDS is also having a huge affect on food security. The adults in the households are often too sick to help the family. And then you get households run by children."
The shy teenage girl, wearing blue nail polish, has scared brown eyes and starts crying when questioned about her parents.
"They were both very sick for a long time before they died," she said.
Her grandmother lives in the area, but other family members make "funny remarks" when the grandmother shares food with her and her brother.
"It is better to live here alone by ourselves, they make us feel uncomfortable. We look after ourselves, we walk together to school every morning, and come back in the afternoons and then cook dinner for ourselves."
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