Zimbabwe's urban poor and workers forced off white-owned farms urgently need food aid, as a drastic shortage of basic foods deepens, a UN report said yesterday.
Preliminary findings by a UN mission in the agricultural provinces of Mashonaland East and West found that maize imported by the country's Grain Marketing Board is no longer enough to meet demand.
"The commercial farm workers, the resettled farmers and the communal farmers have experienced a drastic shortage of food from June 2002," the report said.
"Food aid intervention in these regions is urgently required," it said.
The report also warned of "possible increases in the numbers of internally displaced persons if government does not quickly assist the farm workers who have lost their jobs and have not been resettled".
As many as 1.5 million farm workers and their families could lose their homes and employment if a government edict ordering 2,900 white farmers to leave their land to clear the way for resettlement by black farmers is strictly enforced.
Scores of white Zimbabwean farmers have reportedly fled into hiding to avoid arrest as police continued to crack down on them for defying a government order to leave their farms.
Police spokesman Mr Wayne Bvudzijena said 215 white farmers have been arrested since the start of last week's crackdown.
Workers' advocates say only about 10 per cent of the farm workers are expected to receive land under the government's land reform scheme.
The report was based on an assessment conducted by officials from government agencies, as part of a wider mission including UN and other agencies.
Meanwhile, another study in Zimbabwe's urban areas found that food prices rose about 21 per cent between January and June, leaving many low-income families unable to afford food.
"The continuous increase in prices is negatively affecting the vulnerable populations' ability to purchase food, as they drain their savings and asset base to try to feed themselves," said the report, based on a study conducted by the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe and the US-funded FEWSNET famine warning system.
The UN report also warned that the high incidence of HIV, which has infected one in three Zimbabwean adults, has compounded the effects of the food shortages.
In one district studied in southern Zimbabwe, it was found that increased mortality rates were complicated by high HIV rates, and that 80 per cent of children admitted to the district hospital were HIV positive.
After the March harvests, Zimbabwe had a 1.8-million-tonne grain shortfall, leaving six million people - roughly half the population - facing starvation before the next harvest, according to the UN.
The shortages are being blamed on drought and on the government's turbulent land reforms, which have left most commercial farms unable to operate normally.
President Robert Mugabe has come under mounting international criticism for forcing white farmers off their land as the once prosperous nation faces famine. - (AFP)