The Zimbabwe government has made a formal appeal for new international food aid to stave off starvation faced by some 5,5-million people, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said on Thursday.
”We now have the appeal in hand and certainly it has been a bit of a while in coming,” said WFP country director for Zimbabwe Kevin Farrell.
He said the government forecast a grain deficit of 711 000 tonnes until the next main harvest in early 2004.
The government has estimated a production total this year of 900 000 tonnes of the staple maize, and state reserves total some 284 000 tonnes.
”It (the appeal) says government will need to import 711 000 tonnes of maize grain in order to make up for the maize grain deficit,” Farrell said.
The WFP received the government appeal on Tuesday and will forward it Thursday, he said.
”We are trying to resource 350 000 tonnes on top of the carryover that we have of a little over 100 000 [tonnes],” he told reporters.
With an average one person in two facing food shortages, Zimbabwe is the largest recipient of humanitarian aid in southern Africa for a second year running.
UN food agencies meeting in South Africa last month concluded that the dire situation in Zimbabwe was caused by drought and the ”current social, economic and political situation”.
Zimbabwe embarked on a controversial and sometimes violent land reform programme in early 2000 that has seen some 14-million hectares (42-million acres) of formerly white-owned land being seized to redistribute to landless blacks. – Sapa-AFP