WUNRN
Children in
Save the Children said the most vulnerable faced starvation unless they get
food aid in the next couple of weeks.
"The rising malnutrition and the rise in diseases are going to mean that
children will die and we have to act very fast," said Sarah Jacobs, a
spokeswoman for the relief group.
The United Nations had said previously that more than 5 million people in
Jacobs said many people in the
"It's got no nutritional value whatsoever. It tastes disgusting and it
also has a parasite which attaches to it which is toxic," said Jacobs, who
has just returned from the region.
"This is all they have to eat. You see babies eating it and toddlers
eating it, and it's not digestible. It creates terrible stomach pains."
People were eating anything to survive, she said. She had come across one child
who had died after eating a poisonous root and young children eating tiny rats
they caught in their huts.
Save the Children and other agencies are resuming work after
President Robert Mugabe imposed the ban before a run-off presidential election
in June, accusing the agencies of supporting the opposition. But Save the
Children said in reality many agencies had not been able to work in the field
since the first election round in March.
The agency, which has launched a 5 million pound ($9.2 million) appeal for
emergency operations in
"People's ways of coping have been completely exhausted. People are saying
they're scared they're going to die within weeks if food doesn't come,"
Jacobs said.
"We really are playing catch up. It's a huge humanitarian job now and
there has to be much more money than there has ever been before."
AIDS/HIV
Jacobs said many children had diarrhoea after eating makuri, which was
particularly dangerous in a situation where there was no proper clean water or
sanitation.
The lack of nutrition had also weakened people's immune systems and left them
vulnerable to illness just before the rainy season when cases of malaria and
cholera increase.
There have already been suspected cases of cholera even though the disease does
not usually appear until the rains arrive in October.
Save the Children said proper nutrition was particularly vital for those with
HIV/AIDS, which effects one in five adults in
The food crisis has also caused many children to drop out of school either
because they could not afford to go, needed to work or look for food, or
because their teachers could not afford the journey to work.
______________________________________________________________________
UPDATE - Full Article - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/world/africa/28zimbabwe.html?_r=1&ref=world
Zimbabwe’s Crisis Raises Dire Alerts
December 27, 2008
HARARE, Zimbabwe
(AP) — International aid agencies warned Saturday that Zimbabwe’s humanitarian
crisis was deepening, with a sharp rise in acute child malnutrition and a
worsening cholera epidemic.
Acute child malnutrition has
increased by almost two-thirds compared with last year, the aid agency Save the
Children said in a new report on Saturday.........
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