Dhaka, Feb 10

Thousands of people in the remote region of southeast Bangladesh are facing famine after a plague of rats destroyed their crops, forcing families to rely on dwindling food stocks, officials said. Flowering of bamboo forests for the first time in 50 years in areas along the border with India has led to a so-called “rat-flood” - rodents who have multiplied in number by feeding on bamboo blossoms, rice stalks and vegetables. “The rat invasion has turned hilly plantation areas into scorched earth,” Prosenjit Chakma, a senior aid official with the United Nations Development Programme said on Saturday after a visit to the Chittagong Hills Tracts. “A localised famine is going on in the worst affected areas like Sajek, Farua and Bilaichhari,” Chakma told AFP.

Bamboo forests first began blossoming last year in Lusai Hills in the neighbouring Indian state of Mizoram, prompting authorities there to declare it a disaster zone after rats went on to eat food stocks. The problem soon spread to nearby remote border villages of Bangladeshs hill districts and now stretches more than 300 kilometres. The region has already been racked by a two-decade ethnic insurgency over demands for autonomy which has claimed more than 2,500 lives. Aid workers said the influx of rodents has affected 150,000 people in three of the districts. “Whatever they try to grow is devoured within hours by hundreds of thousands of rats,” said AuronendoTripura, spokesman of the Rangamati Hill Council, covering one of the three districts. “In Rangamati alone, we believe up to 3,500 families face starvation because of the rat attack. All their crops have been damaged and their foodstocks have run out,” he said. “People are now eating wild potatoes to survive.The Mizoram authorities are distributing food aid to the affected people,” hesaid. Locals said the plague happens once every 50 to 60 years, with the last such disaster in 1958, and is linked with the flowering of the bamboo forests.

- AFP