Child dies after eating meal of roots and leaves

By Tichaona Sibanda
3 September 2008

A child has died in Binga, Matabeleland North province from food poisoning after eating a meal of roots and leaves. This comes at a time when reports state the country is facing the prospect of famine on an unprecedented scale.

Villagers in Binga and Lupane are surviving on a diet of wild fruit and roots. Reporting the starvation and poverty in the region, MDC MP for Binga, Joel Gabuza described scenes of extreme deprivation in villages which have been cut off from the rest of the country for months.

Last week the legislator picked up a small family on the side of a road 18 km south of his constituency. It was a mother and her three children, and she was carrying her youngest child who had just died in her arms.

The other two children were both in a critical condition. Gabuza rushed the family to the hospital in Binga. In their desperate hunger, they had eaten poisonous roots. Luckily after a few days of care in the hospital the mother and two children have survived.

In Chikomba district in Mashonaland East province women say they have little choice but to have sex with men so that they can feed hungry mouths at home. MDC MP for Mbare, Piniel Denga who comes from the area told Newsreel on Wednesday more and more women were resorting to bartering sex for food as the crisis in the country is accelerating much faster than had been anticipated.

“More often they are doing it without the use of condoms, therefore putting themselves and others at risk of becoming infected with HIV. Hunger has tightened its grip in the district and I understand thousands are abandoning their homes in search of food,” Denga said.

The shortages have reached critical levels in Mashonaland East where over 500 000 people urgently need food aid. The MP said the government has failed to provide food to starving villagers since June when they distributed 5kg bags of maize meal to each household.

Denga said grain millers have become hunting grounds for women seeking to barter sex for food. The situation was made worse by lack of electricity at times, forcing male customers to spend nights at the millers and inevitably attracting the desperate women.

“Before the presidential run-off, government went around campaigning for Mugabe by distributing food to villagers. This only lasted two days at most for many families who are now surviving on edible tree leaves, wild fruit and roots,” Denga said.

Where food is available, according to the Mbare MP, it is distributed along political lines. While the Grain Marketing Board has run out of maize and the situation shows no sign of improving, ZANU PF still has a monopoly on who buys and distributes the little food left in the country.

Villagers are not being given food by the government. They are being denied the right to buy the food if it is available because they voted MDC during the elections.