Actress Daniela Nardini has told how an encounter with three young orphaned girls showed her the "enormity" of the problems faced by children living in a famine zone.

The star of television shows This Life and Sirens travelled to Malawi in southern Africa as a guest of the third world development charity Oxfam.

She had agreed to act as a celebrity campaigner in an attempt to highlight the famine that is threatening 18 million people across the region with starvation.

Millions are facing starvation in Malawi

The charity said an estimated 800,000 children have been orphaned in Malawi, where many children are left struggling to keep families together.

Ms Nardini travelled to the Pulula village in the Balaka region, where she met three young girls who lived alone.

The oldest, 14-year-old Susannah, walks 40 minutes twice a day to fetch water so she can make Mavis, 10, and, Patricia, nine, a meal of maize porridge from a supply gifted by Oxfam.

Daniela, who hails from Largs in Ayrshire, gave the children a bag of maize which cost about �6.

That supply would be enough to feed the girls for about a month.

Crops destroyed

"We also gave them some toy handbags and silver hairgrips which they really loved," she said.

"That's when you realise that they are just wee girls and the enormity of the disaster they are living through really hits you.

"Thousands are facing starvation. We can't just sit back and wait for the bodies to start piling up before we begin to help".

The actress brought grain to the children

Oxfam said more than three million people are already starving in Malawi, where droughts and floods have destroyed the maize crop.

The situation has been exacerbated by the Aids pandemic which is sweeping the region.

Oxfam estimates that up to 30% of the Malawian population is HIV positive.

However, Oxfam spokesman Alister Shields said there was still hope.

"We have a chance to avoid repeating the kind of disaster that we all remember from Ethiopia," he said.

"If the rich world acts now we can reach the hungry before the rainy season makes the roads impassable. But time is short."

Oxfam has created a Southern Africa donations page on its website, while donations can also be made by calling 0845 3007070.