UN seeks $430 million for drought

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — About half of Zimbabwe’s population urgently needs food and water after the country’s worst drought in four decades, the U.N. humanitarian agency said Thursday as it launched an appeal for $430 million to help those most in need.

About 7.6 million of the country’s 15 million people need “lifesaving and life-sustaining” humanitarian assistance, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. But the agency is asking donors for the money to help the 3.1 million people in the most severely affected districts for the coming year, said Edward Matthew Kallon, U.N. resident humanitarian coordinator.

A drought induced by the El Nino weather phenomenon is sweeping across much of southern Africa and has left both people and animals in desperate need of food and water. Zimbabwe, an agriculture reliant nation and one time exporter of food, is among the hardest hit by the drought.