'The Zimbabwean people are starving to death'



Harare - Famine has claimed the lives of 152 people, mostly children, in the Zimbabwean city of Bulawayo, it was reported in Harare on Sunday.

The weekly independent Standard newspaper, quoting from the records of the Bulawayo city council's health department, said that 29 people had died of malnutrition in July.

It brings to 152 the number of famine-related deaths reported in Bulawayo this year, although the records did not show the number of deaths in April.

The Bulawayo health department report said that of the 29 people who died in July, 21 were children under the age of five.

Bulawayo is the only large urban centre in Zimbabwe where authorities monitor deaths caused by malnutrition.

In Harare, however, the city council this year reported a substantial increase in chronic under-nutrition, especially among children.

The latest deaths come after orders by President Robert Mugabe's government to Western aid agencies to end famine relief operations.

It claims a record harvest of maize, the national staple food, has been harvested this year, despite United Nations forecasts that about 4.5 million people will need food aid to avoid starvation.

In the last two years, the UN has kept up to six million people at a time alive with food aid deliveries after the country's once-abundant agricultural industry was devastated by a campaign of land seizures.

Mugabe's critics say they fear he plans to use food as a political weapon to force starving people to vote for his ruling Zanu-PF party in parliamentary elections scheduled for March next year.

In September, the World Food Programme estimated that 2.5 million of the country's urban population needed famine relief.

- Staff Reporter, Cape Times