Sumba people face food shortages

MAUMERE, East Nusa Tenggara: With supplies of staple food running short in the past two months, people in East Sumba regency could suffer from hunger early next year, a local legislator said on Thursday.

Deputy speaker of the regency legislature Josef Supusepa warned of the starvation after visiting Kayuri and Umalulu villages, where he said people had complained about the lack of rice and corn.

"People start to eat crops to be sewn in the upcoming planting season which begins in mid-November. They will have nothing to eat and plant in the next two months," he said.

Other legislators, Yohanes Paulus and Robertus Gah, predicted that the remaining staple food reserves would not be enough to feed people across the regency.

"A lot of them have already been consumed because of the poor harvest last year," Paulus said.

He said the legislators had called on the local administration to address the matter seriously a long time. "But no concrete measures have been taken so far." (yac)