Desperation as people await harvests

Rain-parched Southern Africa is eagerly awaiting the April/May harvests, which will determine whether up to three million people starve.

The situation is forcing desperate Zimbabweans to sell cattle and other belongings at vastly reduced sums to buy food to feed their families.

Reverend Forbes Mutonga, National Director of Christian Care, a World Food Programme (WFP) implementation partner, said: "For kids, the [school] supplementary feeding programmes are becoming their only meal in places like Masvingo and Chipinge.

"Basically life is difficult. In Chipinge district the people have been affected by a cyclone (in 2000), drought and then major drought.

"In Matabeleland most people have some cattle and when they sell them they are being exploited and given some maize meal and are being forced into barter trade. There are even reports of people eating wild roots."

Mutonga said it was not only people who had no crops in their fields and no money who were suffering. People who had money had found it impossible to buy basic foodstuffs.

"This is giving us more of a headache," said Mutonga.

Some of the worst hit areas Christian Care worked in included Guruve and Muzarabani in Mashonaland central, Kariba district, Masvingo, two Matabeland provinces and the Midlands.

"Only two out of 10 provinces have received rainfull so far," said Mutonga.

The results of harvests at the end of April and May will be a key indicator of the region's food security and will be closely watched by the WFP.

Mutonga's concerns are echoed by both the WFP and Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET).

In reports on the regional food security situation the organisations warned that all crops in the southern districts of Masvingo, Midlands, Manicaland, Matabeleland south and north provinces have been badly affected by the drought.

Zimbabwe would have a maize deficit of between 1,2 to 1,5 million tons in the 2002/2003 marketing season, similar to the 1992/93 marketing season.

The WFP is currently implementing a 12-month US$60 million emergency food programme in Zimbabwe which it hopes will reach about 500,000 of the most needy.

On Tuesday afternoon, the WFP would meet NGOs to discuss urban food shortage assessments.

Meanwhile, in other regions, the WFP reported that an emergency programme in Malawi is targeting over 301,000 people. Earlier reports said up to 80 percent of Malawians were facing food shortages.

Zambians continue to battle low and erratic rainfall and early reports from Mozambique indicate that in Tete province several districts will suffer food shortages in the next three months due to the lack of rainfall.

In Angola, heavy rains caused major flooding in Lobito and Benguela hampering access. More than 2,700 people will be helped with WFP aid this week in the Lobito and Dombe areas and community kitchens would be opened in Lobito and Benguela for about 1,000 people who lost their housees, the WFP report said.

In Balombo and Benguela municipalities, over 800 malnourished children were given WFP food. Following the ceasefire about 3,900 malnourished internally displaced people were resettled in Kuito, Kunhinga and Kamacupa.

A FEWSNET report also warned that as a result of warm sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean an El Nino event, which is normally associated with poor rainfall in Southern Africa, was beginning to develop.