RETIRED nurse Maria Brennan is appealing for help for her native country of Malawi where hundreds of thousands of people are dying from either starvation or AIDS.

Mrs Brennan, 66, of Goddard Road, Pewsey, is worried that by the time the world realises the double drama unfolding in Malawi, formerly Nyasaland, in central Africa, it will be too late to prevent the combination of famine and sickness wiping out much of the population.

Like other countries in central Africa, Malawi is in the clutches of an AIDS epidemic that has lowered the average age expectancy to the mid-30s.

Hundreds of children have been left orphaned and it is not uncommon to see children as young as 12 and 13 having to become the head of the family and look after their younger brothers and sisters, in many cases digging for roots to survive on.

As well as AIDS, the country is currently going through its worst drought in living memory which has resulted in the failure of its staple food crop, maize.

Mrs Brennan, whose husband Jim, a former Irish rugby international and academic, died a year ago, returned to Malawi in May to visit her 91 year-old mother and her other relatives.

There she saw much evidence of kwashiorkor, a condition caused by calorie and mineral deficiency which causes the stomach to become swollen.

Mrs Brennan's family have a farm and are managing to survive while trying to help the victims of plague and pestilence.

Two of her brothers have each adopted five orphan children whose parents died from AIDS.

Their own futures, she said, are uncertain but they are almost sure to develop the killer virus.

Her mother, although she is over 90, shares her own meagre food supplies with as many people in her village as she can.

Mrs Brennan said: "My mother will not starve because she has so many sons and daughters and nephews and nieces to look after her. Every day she sees the children walking past her home going to school, starving. She will always share whatever she is having for breakfast with them."

Mrs Brennan problems could be eased by making what was a green and verdant land fertile again.

The current famine has been caused by poor rain after the last planting season in November, followed by floods in February which washed away much of the crop.

Since then, drought has baked the soil and shrivelled the maize.

But Malawi is lucky in that, given the water, its land can produce two crops a year, said Mrs Brennan who came to Wiltshire in 1982,

She says it is time the world took notice that Malawi cannot get itself out of its current disease and drought dilemma.

"The people are too weak to do very much themselves. It needs young farmers from the rest of the world to go there and help them by using tractors to till the fields and young engineers to plan irrigation schemes," she said.

Mr Brennan said that without global aid Malawi, which is listed as the 11th poorest nation in the world, cannot survive the present crises.

In Wiltshire people can help, she suggested, by getting their churches to organise appeals for money to send food to Malawi. She said: "Please, please help before it is too late.

"Many people in Malawi are going to die anyway from disease. International help and money for food can save the rest of my people."

nkerton@newswilts.co.uk