ASMARA: Villagers in drought-hit Eritrea spend their days being hungry, walking long distances to receive food aid, or attending the frequent burials of friends and relatives.

Aid workers say children are dying as food shortages have made them more vulnerable to disease and led to an increase in malnutrition, upper respiratory infections and diarrhoea.

Many children in the Horn of Africa country are seriously malnourished and look as though they have more bones than flesh.

Scarce rainfall has slashed Eritrea’s harvests and wiped out much of its livestock just as it was recovering from a devastating two-year border war with Ethiopia which ended in 2000.

The UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, has announced that 68,000 children in Eritrea are malnourished and appealed for 19,000 tons of food.

But 5,000 to 10,000 of the affected children need intensive medical attention in addition to food, UNICEF officials said.

Food prices have risen sharply in the last few months due to drought and many families cannot afford to buy nutritious food.

Beraki Gebru, 40, a resident of Maiaini village, 70 kms southeast of Asmara, said the drought had weakened livestock, forcing farmers to sell oxen at around 2,500 nafkas each, almost half the price the animals were fetching in August.

Eritrea has appealed for food supplies for three-quarters of its 3.3 million people it says are affected by the drought, which has also struck neighbouring Ethiopia.

But the food aid has been slow in coming.—Reuters