UN food aid agencies pull out

UN food aid agencies pull out

THE UN and opposition MDC agricultural experts warn Zimbabwe faces serious food shortages after the coming farming season

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By Agencies

THE UN food agencies in Zimbabwe were forced to suspend a mission to assess crop supplies in the impoverished southern African country after local administrators interrupted their work, the World Food Programme said.

WFP regional spokesman Richard Lee said both the WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) withdrew their teams in the field after being told the crop and food supply assessment mission had been cancelled.

"They were informed by local administrators that the mission was cancelled. They then returned to Harare to wait. At the moment we have had not any official written confirmation that the mission has been cancelled," Lee said.

"Teams from FAO and WFP always go around the country to assess the harvests this time of the year. We have similar missions in other countries in the region at the moment," he added.

The government is expected to clarify the matter this week.

The United Nations warned in January that around five million people, nearly two-thirds of Zimbabwe's rural population, needed food aid.

The shortages have been attributed partly to a drought and the government's controversial land reform programme of taking white-owned farmland and re-distributing it to blacks.
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