SWAZILAND: The crescent of drought

MBABANE Thursday, November 20, 2008 (IRIN) - November, often the rainiest month of the year in Swaziland, has left most of the country awash with flash floods; but in the eastern Lowveld, no rain has fallen, and the fear is of yet another drought year in which food aid will be needed. "Are we cursed, the people living here? Not a drop has fallen, not one drop," said Amos Zwane, a smallholder farmer near Lavumisa in the Shiselweni region in the south. The area is nearing its second decade of...