The region of Karamoja, about 550 kilometres (330 miles) from the capital Kampala, is one of the remotest areas in Uganda and the least developed in the east African country.

Now successive and relentless droughts have made life an even greater misery for its inhabitants, who are already beset by fighting between rival tribes.

In response to the malnutrition, which the United Nations now says exceeds 16 percent in some parts of Karamoja, the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) began last week to distribute food aid to up to 500,000 starving people in northeastern Uganda.

"Life here is very harsh," Loumo sighed. "We cannot grow anything because the soil is so poor and the security is so bad."

Locals sometimes have to go to extreme lengths to keep hunger at bay.

Wild fruit needs to be boiled until its sourness has been tamed. Finding water is an even greater task, with the women having to follow the path of dried up streams until they find a damp patch.

"We follow the stream, then dig deep to find water because the borehole that was here broke down," explained Loumo, who lives in the Moroto district, the worst hit part of Karamoja.

Most of the foraging for food and firewood is carried out by women, who complain that their menfolk while away the time swapping stories underneath the shade of the trees.

"The men only help us during cultivation but they don't take part when it comes to looking for food to feed the family," Loumo said.

Residents in northeastern Uganda have long struggled to feed themselves but Alix Loriston, deputy head of the WFP in Uganda, saID the situation has become particularly acute in the last few years.

The lack of rains has meant a major reduction in millet harvests, a traditional food staple, with prices rising beyond most people's budgets.

"The rains generally fail every five years but since 2000 we've seen a drought every second year," Loriston told AFP.

"The effects are devastating, especially for those who are most vulnerable -- pregnant women and new mothers and young children."

The drought is also plaguing other countries in the the region such as Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia and Djibouti, and prompted a warning this week from the WFP of "a humanitarian catastrophe ... (unless donors) provide emergency food aid for an estimated 5.4 million people."

Tribal hostilities, often in the form of raids on villagers' precious cattle herds, have compounded the difficulties.

"I had eight children but three of them have been killed," said 54-year-old Agnes Nayolo.

"One was killed while he looking after our cows that they (members of a rival tribe) took with them. The other two were killed on the same day while hunting for the family."

The government has pledged to enforce a disarmament programme. But some locals say it has been heavy-handed and a number of youths detained by the security forces had never returned home.

"We do not know whether they were killed or not," said local tribal elder Peter Lokut.

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