Police and war vets block MDC food distribution to orphans

By Alex Bell
17 October 2008

As millions of Zimbabweans face a daily battle to survive, it is becoming clear that ZANU PF continues to hold the nation hostage – this after police and war veterans prevented the MDC from distributing critically needed food to hungry orphans in the Nyanga rural district in the eastern Manicaland province last week.

The severe food crisis is taking it’s toll on the country and unknown numbers of people are beginning to suffer the effects of extreme hunger and malnutrition. Newsreel reported this week that numerous children, the country’s smallest and youngest victims of the country’s combined crises, have already died from the hunger related disease of kwashiorkor. There is no exact figure of the number of dead children, as only half of the sick taken to hospital are admitted – the rest are sent home to die.

The situation has even seen children flee their homes in search of food and possible employment in South Africa – an indication of the desperate nature of the humanitarian crisis that is being kept secret by Robert Mugabe’s regime.

Food aid is becoming daily more critical after Mugabe only partially lifted his government’s ban on foreign aid, imposed in June. A UN assessment report predicted that up to 5 million Zimbabweans would face starvation in January and the obvious crisis has seen mass calls from international aid organisations for donations and food, to feed millions of already starving people.

According to international relief and development agency, World Vision, the chronic food shortages are the worst the country has ever seen. The group’s Director of Humanitarian Emergency affairs for Zimbabwe, Daniel Muchena, told Newsreel on Friday that the crisis has affected urban areas just as badly because of the economic collapse in the country, and all sectors of the country will soon be reliant on food aid.

“We have scaled up relief efforts to curb hunger due to
increased vulnerability in households in food insecure districts,” Muchena said, explaining the organisation’s food relief programme set to benefit 1.2 million people by the peak of the hungry season between now and January. He added: “Communities have exhausted their coping mechanisms and have resorted to barter, trading their livestock for grain. In some areas, the most vulnerable households are relying on wild fruits for survival.”

Despite this clear need for food, there has been no change in the minds of the ZANU PF controlled police and war veterans. According to the MDC’s social welfare officer for Manicaland, Lloyd Mahute, police and ex-combatants told MDC officials that they could not give food to people because they did not have permission to do so from Robert Mugabe’s government – this despite the power sharing agreement signed by Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

According to Mahute, armed police, backed by war vets, some of whom were wearing ruling ZANU PF party regalia, last week stormed Ruwangwe rural business centre in Nyanga and ordered villagers who had gathered to receive food packs to disperse empty handed. The MDC had sourced the food from charitable organisations for distribution to about 500 vulnerable households in Nyanga, the majority of which are parentless homes. Mahute said that more than 10 tons of food including maize meal, cooking oil, salt, sugar beans and dried fish is now locked up in warehouses because it cannot be given to the hungry.