PORT MORESBY – People in drought-ravaged villages in Papua New Guinea are eating toxic mushrooms and clay to stave off hunger pangs as crops fail, vanishing water sources become contaminated and food, medical and fuel supplies are exhausted.

Leprosy and severe, potentially fatal, gastrointestinal cases have spiked in some villages in one province, including suspected cholera or typhoid, international experts working in the area reported.

They said populations in isolated communities across the rugged north and west of the country were enduring some of the worst of the fallout from this year’s extreme El Niño.

Their villages are many days’ jungle walk to the nearest town, and accessible only by riverboat or charter flights.

Crops have been wiped out, rivers have dried up and schools and medical clinics have been forced to shut.

There are fears that this year’s emergency may equal or surpass the devastation of the 1997-98 El Niño when hundreds died in PNG, the toll claiming up to seven per cent of populations in some rural pockets.

“Throughout September I was seeing people, mostly children, everyday with diarrhoea,” said Dr Penny Johnson, an Australian National University medical anthropologist who works regularly in the lower Fly river region in Western Province, home to an estimated 140,000 people.

“I was also seeing a lot of leprosy” – at least 16 cases in one community. “Open weeping ulcers seemed to be spreading from stagnant muddy bathing holes, as well as person to person.”

Johnson’s local colleague Jimmy Nebni advised her last week that people were now camping in the bush to escape the sun, that garden crops had rotted, and yam suckers for the next season’s crop were not sprouting.

“Animals are beginning to die and when we take some meat our bodies feel stomach pains, feel diarrhoea and weak bodies. We are praying to God for help in this situation,” Nebni said.

A Uniting Church-funded investigation into the effects of the drought, drawing on visits to 30 villages scattered through the highlands, found that staple sweet potato crops had been decimated due to the combined effects of drought and frost since the El Niño began in April.

“With most creeks drying up, everyone is now walking long distances to fetch drinking water from rivers,” reported drought assessor Matthew Kanua.

“Water-borne diseases can pose serious risk as most people are drinking, bathing and doing their laundries in the rivers.”

Canadian anthropologist Professor Dan Jorgensen, who has been conducting field work in PNG’s far west Telefomin and North Fly districts for many years, has also documented cascading effects as drought chokes vital riverboat supply lines. Schools and medical clinics are operating on reduced hours or not at all.

Australian Sally Lloyd, who grew up in a village on the Middle Fly where her parents were missionaries, is part of a network of church, academic and community leaders lobbying the PNG and Australian governments and the World Food Programme for a heightened emergency response to the crisis.

She observed people eating clay during her most recent visit, in October.

“It’s a special type of clay. Birds and other animals eat it when there is no food. People break it and chew it – it helps with the hunger, and helps if they are feeling sick.”

She remains in daily contact with people around Mougulu, and said conditions had deteriorated.

With garden supplies and store-bought foods now extremely scarce, staff at the medical centre reported locals foraging for wild mushrooms. Several have become comatose and many patients are being treated for diarrhoea and vomiting.

Drought assessor Kanua said he was concerned by the long-term impacts, even when conditions ease.

Many families have culled their pigs, goats and sheep because there is nothing for them to graze on. Fish stocks have gone as ponds have dried up.

His assessment included accounts of widespread migration as desperate families abandon their homes and food gardens, travelling long distances to stay with extended family.

Paul Barker, the head of the PNG Institute of National Affairs independent think tank, said drought and frosts had affected crops throughout the country, with varying impacts.

“Across much of the country, from the highlands to remote islands, staple crops became largely unavailable, starting with taro, then sweet potato, and with even resilient cassava suffering, largely from borer infestations”.

Although recent rains have brought relief in some areas, “recovery is mixed and if forecasters are right, may be in diminished quantities over the next six months.

The PNG government has pledged emergency aid but the reports indicate that, despite early warnings, in many of the surveyed communities the response has so far been slow, insufficient, or non-existent.

- The Guardian