"Zimbabwe is the only country facing national crisis"

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Poverty in Africa. File Photo: EFE

The U.N. food aid agency found some rural Zimbabweans subsisting on wild fruits when it was able to reach the countryside after months of being blocked by the government, the agency said Thursday as it appealed for more donations to fight hunger there.

Zimbabwe's governing party accused independent groups of supporting opposition activists and barred them from distributing aid for three months. The ban was lifted in late August, but the groups, which had denied the accusations of political bias, were not able to resume work immediately for logistical reasons.

World Food Program spokesman Richard Lee accompanied workers handing out dried corn, vegetable oil and other aid in central Zimbabwe over the weekend in one of the first mass distributions since the ban was lifted.

Zimbabwe's economic collapse, with inflation of at least 231 million percent a year, has put seeds, fertilizer and farming equipment out of the reach of many. AIDS has devastated the farming work force. Weather also has played a role, with too much rain in some areas and too little in others last year. The combination of factors and years of food scarcity have put Zimbabwe in a category all its own in a region where other countries are poor and others have been buffeted by AIDS and bad weather.

Zimbabwe is the only one that is facing a national crisis,'' Lee said. In a video Lee shot of the distribution, villagers were shown painstakingly picking kernels from the ground after just a handful of grain spilled, shaking off the dust and placing the food carefully in bags before hauling it home on their backs, in wheelbarrows, or on burros.