Nearly two-thirds of Zimbabwe’s rural population will need food aid in the coming two months, the United Nations said in its bi-montly humanitarian situation report.
”Around five-million people, 64% of Zimbabwe’s 7,8-million rural people, are estimated to be food insecure and requiring food assistance between January and March 2004,” stated the report released late Wednesday.
According to the Famine Early Warning System, maize supplies in rural areas continue to be ”erratic and inadequate”.
”Although a wet spell has recently been experienced in most parts of the country, there are pockets of dry areas in the southern districts of Masvingo, Matebeleland South and parts of Manicaland,” the report said.
”This is a cause for concern since the same districts experienced critical food shortages last year and drought is almost a perennial problem in these areas.”
A late start to the rain season and erratic rains have raised fears of a reduction in agricultural production, the United Nations added.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said in December last year more than four million people would need its assistance in January.
In July last year, the agency said it needed $311-million to feed 6,5-million people in southern Africa, adding that two-thirds of that amount would have to spent on Zimbabwe. – Sapa-AFP