WFP suspends food aid in Insiza district

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday it had suspended food aid distribution in Insiza district in Zimbabwe's Matabeleland South province "until further notice", following the seizure of food by ruling ZANU-PF activists and its partisan redistribution. The food agency said that ZANU-PF activists in Senale centre in Insiza district on Thursday "intimidated" staff of the local implementing NGO, Organisation of Rural Associations for Progress (ORAP), and seized 3 mt of food which they "distributed in an unauthorised manner". The ZANU-PF supporters were campaigning ahead of a by-election due in the area next month. "Relief food distributions are not the place for any kind of political activity. WFP will only distribute its food on the basis of need and without regard to partisan affiliations," WFP Zimbabwe Representative Kevin Farrell said. This has been the first time WFP has had to raise the alarm over the politicisation of food aid, and the agency said it was seeking urgent assurances from the authorities that a similar incident would not happen again. The food seized was the monthly ration for 6,780 people in two wards in the district. WFP's suspension of distribution coincided with the announcement that the European Commission had donated US $60 million for the food agency's Southern Africa appeal, and half of the amount would be spent on the relief programme in Zimbabwe. WFP said it would be targeting four million hungry people in the country. Meanwhile, Save the Children Fund (SCF) said on Friday it was continuing talks with the government over their suspension as a registered food distribution NGO in Binga and Chimanimani districts in the drought-prone Zambezi valley. Director Chris McIvor told IRIN that SCF had presented the authorities with the requested paperwork regarding their registration and activities on Thursday, and he was "reasonably hopeful" the suspension, announced last week, would be lifted. SCF was "gearing up" to feed 125,000 people in the two districts by November/December, McIvor said. News reports said Oxfam, another British NGO, had also been suspended from distributing food by the government.