Zimbabwae

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Food shortages feared in Zimbabwe Although most of the world's attention is focused on the Middle East other parts of the world are also in chaos. Aid agencies on Tuesday warned of severe food shortages in rural Zimbabwe over the coming months, saying a combination of drought and land invasions had dramatically reduced crop plantings. In its latest report, the Zimbabwe Agricultural Welfare Trust (ZAWT) said 25,000 workers had been evicted from farms over the past five weeks and many had been forced to camp on roadsides. Politically the country is worried about giving white farmers land to landless blacks. Since the end of apartheid the country has had a difficult time desegregating the country. So in a time of such chaos white landowners are having their land taken away. Fearing a shortfall in food stocks, the ZAWT has called for donations of maize, dried fish and vegetable seeds. "A massive humanitarian disaster is about to unfold," it said.

Economically in a land were the people are very dependent on crops the drought has brought great tension. The people are being left with arid and bare land and they are being forced to eat tree stems to stay alive.

The only way to combat these problems at this point and time is with relief. The humanitarian group WVI plans to distribute food from early December in the two provinces. Earlier this year, Finance Minister Simba Makoni acknowledged the country would need to import food to meet domestic demand, but said there was no provision in the 2001 budget for imports. The problem is the government doesn't have the money and resources to keep its people from starvation. They our going to depend on the help of other countries: such as the U.S. The international community will have to look at this problem before it becomes a horrific scene. Before, hundreds of thousands of people begin to die from starvation.