Last week, the U.

N issued a so called flash appeal.

The island countries agricultural season was ruined by the worst drought in a decade.

Now, because of that drug, more than a million people in southern Madagascar will need food aid.

This year, the pandemic has added to the hardship.

The seasonal work that people often rely on has been affected by the lock down a country.

Desperate Children, malnourished parents trying but often failing to find food.

My Children didn't eat for three days and then died because I, their mother, couldn't feed them.

I know it was the famine that killed them.

This is Madagascar's third consecutive year of drought in the south.

One in three people is facing life threatening shortages off food and water.

There were so poor that we have nothing to eat because of the drought.

In desperate efforts to keep hunger at bay, many air now mixing white clay with Tamarine fruit and eating it way, had something proper to eat.

We would never have eaten it, but We didn't know that White Clay was edible before we tried to mix it and it worked.

The U.

N has launched an appeal for 76 million U.

S.

Dollars in emergency aid.

The race to feed Madagascan has Bean made more complicated, though, because of the global pandemic.

We're trying to be out there urgently right now to save lives which are at risk.

The covert 19 situation has of course, made everything much more difficult without more help.

Soon this humanitarian crisis will only get worse.

Yeah, for more on this we've invited Jean Luc Zebo onto the program.

He is the World Food Programme's country director for Madagascar.

Welcome Thio to the program Mr Z Blow.

We've we've just heard that the hunger crisis in Madagascar is going to worsen if help doesn't arrive soon.

How urgent is the situation?

Would you say the situation right today is a very alarming for several reason because there has bean an extreme drought for the past year and there has bean, uh, basically no rain except one single rein in December in all the south of Madagascar.

The second reason is that the harvest in last year which is taking place in April.

May was extremely poor and therefore the people have exhausted most of their stock.

So so you.

The UN's appealed for $76 million to address the crisis.

Has that money come through?

No, the this flash appeals you did Cold has been launched together by the United Nations and the international community and the government of Madagascar.

But so far we didn't see any results at all.

What does that tell us?

That there could be this this this crisis, All these people going hungry.

We just saw in our report families resorting to eating clay and leaves to survive Andi.

Yet people aren't responding to this urgent appeal.

Let's say that this is this is quite a normal situation in terms of the length, the time, length of the respond thio, this kind of appeal.

We just hope that this appeal will be heard by the international community that it will be widely the spread and then some responses.

Positive responses will come in the comic weeks and months.

If it doesn't come in the stand that we are hoping we we think we WP that unfortunately, we will go from a very critical situation to a pre famine situation.

If nothing urgent is down.

In addition off what we are doing with some of the partners already Thio alleviate suffering of these people.

All right, That's Jean Luc Cibolo from the World Food Program in Medicare.

Scott.

Thank you.

So thank you.