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| Version 82 | Version 83 |
|---|---|
| Africa Live: Zambia declares national emergency over drought - BBC News | |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| Kennedy Gondwe | |
| BBC News, Lusaka | |
| Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema has declared a national disaster to tackle the prolonged drought affecting the country. | |
| Addressing the nation on Thursday afternoon, Mr Hichilema said 84 districts out of a total of 116 were affected. | |
| Zambia has been experiencing poor rain, with fears | |
| mounting that the country may experience hunger and struggle to meet its electricity | |
| demands as most of its energy is from water sources. | |
| Water levels at Kariba Dam - which Zambia and neighbouring | |
| Zimbabwe use for hydroelectricity - had fallen to about 11.5% of usable storage | |
| as of last December. | |
| The president said the drought would affect the generation of more than 450 megawatts of power. | |
| He | |
| said almost half of the land used for planting crops had been affected by | |
| the dry spell. | |
| Mr Hichilema said his government would work to ensure that | |
| additional maize and other food was brought into the country to make up the | |
| deficit. | |
| He said he would use Zambia's defence | |
| forces “in this fight to save our lives and save families and create a longer | |
| term solution to drought". | |
| “We will work together to get together farmers to plant | |
| more crops. We shall also enhance the social support programmes for the farmers | |
| that have been affected by the drought,” he said. | |
| “We call upon all our local and international partners to | |
| avail any excess food on hand to provide relief. Some partners have already | |
| extended their commitment to offer their support, such as the British, the UN | |
| system, the World Bank Group and others." | |
| He called on farmers to use irrigation methods to cope | |
| with the dry spell. An estimated one million farmers have been affected by the | |
| drought. | |
| Mr Hichilema said his government would work with different | |
| stakeholders, opposition politicians and the church to tackle the situation. | |
| Social media has been awash with videos and | |
| pictures of fields with dying crops. | |
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