MONTHS of drought in southern Africa have left more than 27 million people suffering and caused the region’s worst hunger crisis in decades, the United Nations food agency said today.

The World Food Programme (WFP) warned that it could become a “full-scale human catastrophe.”

Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe have declared national disasters due to the drought, triggered by the El Nino weather phenomenon and resultant hunger.