5,5 million now face starvation
December 28, 2008
HARARE - About 5,5 million people in Zimbabwe are reported to be facing starvation as critical food shortages continue to worsen, with the United Nations calling for increased international help for the country which is also battling a deadly cholera epidemic.
Since independence, Zimbabwe has always been a net exporter of food but now aid agencies say the situation is desperate, with many starving as the economy continues to implode. No deaths from starvation have been officially reported but relief agencies say the situation will worsen if food aid is not sent in quickly. In some areas, thousands have resorted to eating tree roots simply to stay alive, but even the bland roots are now in scarce supply.
Special rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, said in a statement issued in Geneva last week that there was “just not enough food” in Zimbabwe which was once the bread basket of Africa. An estimated 5.5 million people may need food assistance,” he said. Half of Zimbabwe’s 11 million people are on the brink of starvation, according to de Schutter. Many have fled the country to neighbouring countries, fleeing mainly economic hardships and political repression. Many of those exiled Zimbabweans clogged the borders last week, returning home with truckloads of food for their starving families.
Estimates by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) say Zimbabwe will need to import at least 1 million metric tonnes of maize and wheat to avert starvation and replenish its reserves. So far, some 5 million have registered with the government for emergency food aid. Interventions by government to mitigate the food crisis, including the much trumpeted Basic Commodities Supply Side Intervention (BACOSSI) have since flopped as a result of partisan distribution and worsening cash shortages. An aid worker in the worst affected food insecure areas in Zimbabwe told The Zimbabwe Times they have had to introduce a feeding scheme for children.The UN’s World Food Programme reported that in the southern provinces of the Midlands and Masvingo, hundreds of thousands of children were already taking a supplementary meal a day. For some of these children, that is the only meal they are assured of each day.
Last month Zimbabwe’s former Agriculture Minister Rugare Gumbo admitted that the country was to import tons of maize seed immediately from neighbouring South Africa to avert the looming food shortages. South Africa has withheld a R300 million aid package to buy agriculture inputs in Zimbabwe as leverage for the consummation of the power-sharing agreement, but was moving to release the funds. For a long period Zimbabwe denied that the country could face food shortages. President Mugabe also took long to admit that a cholera epidemic was ravaging the country, and only declared a state of emergency after 700 had already succumbed to the disease. So far over 1 200 have perished and over 24 000 have been infected with the deadly disease. Between Saturday, December 20, and last Tuesday UNICEF airlifted 140 metric tonnes of medical supplies into Zimbabwe to fight the cholera epidemic.
Many victims are dying because they are taking medication without any food. The government has promised that no-one will starve.
But the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has already warned President Mugabe’s Zanu-PF not to use food aid to try to get votes in looming elections, which President Mugabe said will be held next year following indications that the power-sharing talks were leading nowhere. Drought-prone southern Zimbabwe normally receives very little rainfall, but last year, poor harvests came as a result of a combination of lack of inputs and heavy rains that ravaged southern Zimbabwe. The lack of food has also been attributed to additional factors such as the government’s chaotic land reform programme. In urban areas, consumers without foreign exchange are facing massive bread and other food shortages as a result of strict price controls imposed by the government. However, most goods are readily available for holders of free funds, who can use their foreign exchange to buy from supermarkets licensed to sell in foreign currency. For the majority of Zimbabweans who have no access to foreign exchange, putting food on the table is a daily challenge.
