MBABANE -- Almost 300,000 people face starvation in Swaziland, an 80 percent increase since August last year, forcing many young people to survive on a meal a day, the country's disaster task team said.

The figure has increased from 236,000 in August and September to 297,000 this year in a population of one million, task team chairman Ben Nsibandze said in a statement, released in the capital, AFP reported.

"This shows an over 80 percent increase from the results of the August/September assessment and if there is no food to come through at the end of March some people will start dying of hunger-related ailments," he said.

"You will remember that most of our pupils from the drought-stricken areas can hardly afford three meals a day and that this shows the seriousness of the food crisis," he said.

The number of people facing famine has more than doubled since August 2001, when around 144,000 were in need of food aid.

The food crisis was exacerbated by the AIDS pandemic in the country, where an estimated 33.4 percent of the population was infected either with HIV or AIDS.

Most of the affected areas are in eastern and central Swaziland, a tiny kingdom landlocked by Mozambique and South Africa, where a dry spell destroyed maize crops before the harvest.

Nsibandze said nongovernmental organizations have already distributed about 13,800 tons of yellow maize donated by the United States, Britain, China, Germany and the UN World Food Program (WFP).

"Since most farmers did not harvest anything the previous year ... these items will go a long way in helping our people to be in a position to plough and expect to harvest something in April," he said.

WFP field coordinator Pauline Njuguna said in December the latest un figures put at least 265,300 Swazis at risk of starvation in the next few months due to drought-induced crop failures.

The WFP has prepared to distribute almost 27,000 tons of food, sufficient to feed more than a quarter of the population from August last year to March this year, when the situation will be reviewed.

But Njuguna warned at the time that the figure was likely to rise dramatically.

"To be honest, I think in 2003 people will really be in trouble.

The numbers are likely to double," she said.