Failed policies by Robert Mugabe combined with drought led to failed harvests in Zimbabwe. The disastrous biofuel policies of the rich nations certainly did not help food relief supplies for the UN. As Zim tumbles to new lows every day, news of UN food shortages will only add to the pressure both inside the country as well as on neighboring countries who found it convenient to support Mugabe for decades.
Half a million people in Zimbabwe will go without food handouts this month, the UN agency responsible for feeding more than two-fifths of the country's population warned yesterday, as shortages of funds force further cuts in rations.
"We are still four months away from the [maize] harvest. We haven't seen the worst yet," Richard Lee, a spokesman for the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Johannesburg, told The Independent on Sunday. "The situation has worsened more quickly than expected. We have reduced rations in December, and will have to do so again in January."
The food crisis has contributed to the rapid spread of the cholera epidemic now ravaging the country. So far nearly 600 people have died and more than 12,000 have been infected, according to the authorities, but the real figures are believed to be much higher as the disease takes its toll among people weakened by hunger.
The WFP expects 5.1 million Zimbabweans – well over half the nine million people remaining in the country – to need food aid by January. The target for this month was 4.2 million, but rations for only 3.7 million are available.
