Famine stalks Zimbabwe’s rural areas

By Tichaona Sibanda
23 March 2007

The MDC has urged the international community to commit critically needed food aid to Zimbabwe to avert a large scale humanitarian crisis amid reports that people are starving and dying in rural areas.

A report on BBC radio 4 on Friday said the situation in rural areas is far worse than most people know, as children and the elderly are succumbing to hunger. The deputy national chairman of the MDC Lovemore Moyo, who is also the MP for Matobo in Matebeleland South, said the situation in the country is grave.

The government last week declared 2007 a drought year but insisted it would not ask for food assistance because it has the capacity to feed its own people. Moyo said government is making things worse by refusing outside help.
‘By not asking for assistance the government is simply afraid that food distribution by any other organisation will neutralise its support base in rural areas. So we are saying to the government, if they have the capacity to feed the nation do so now. Where is the food, give it to the people now,’ Moyo said.
He feared the regime might be holding on to the last stocks of maize for use during campaigns for Presidential and Parliamentary elections that might be held next year. In his Matobo constituency, Moyo said many villagers have been surviving on nothing for days and he’s received reports that many are forced to resort to eating leaves. His party was therefore appealing to donor countries, private companies and non-governmental organisations for urgent assistance as food has run out in the country.

Reports say stocks of the staple food crop maize are ‘very low’ countrywide and market prices have risen beyond the reach of most Zimbabweans. ‘People in the rural areas are on the brink of starvation. The strongest may survive this the others won’t, as long as Zanu (PF) uses food as an electioneering tool,’ Moyo said.

Analysts insist Mugabe’s regime should take the blame for the food crisis. 4,000 commercial farmers have been violently driven off their land in the last seven year, and evictions continue. This has created a total agricultural collapse.

The initial invaders, mostly war veterans were themselves pushed from the farms, which were redistributed to Mugabe’s cronies, top Zanu (PF) party officials, senior army, air force and police officials and compliant judges and journalists.

Few of the ‘new farmers’ are producing crops but the rest lack the skills to produce even on subsistence level, according deputy Agriculture Minister Sylvester Nguni.