This is Outrageous

Inflation has reached 1,000% and the government’s seizure of 95% of commercial farms, as part of its land reparation program, has seen food production plummet. Now, new born babies are literally being found in the streets:

The dead gutter babies are the most pitiful victims of a government that believes it can starve its people into compliance, or death, turning Zimbabwe into the only country in the region with a shrinking population.

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Children are dying off like flies,” said one surgeon in Bulawayo who, like most of those interviewed for this article, asked to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions by President Robert Mugabe’s police state.

Starvation is rampant and the problem has intensified since Operation Murambatsvina — or Drive Out the Filth — the government campaign which left more than 700,000 people without homes or livelihoods after bulldozing their homes.

Few countries have been so devastated by the policies put in place by one man. Mugabe, who last year denied the obvious widespread food shortages, now blames the country's economic nightmare on others:

Mugabe denies charges that his policies are responsible for the economic crisis, maintaining the economy has been sabotaged by Western powers opposed to the seizures.

According to Africa’s food security early warning system, Zimbabwe has the highest cereal (food) deficit in southern Africa. The government has no money to pay for this and Mugabe has consistently refused to appeal for food aid. To do so would mean admitting the failure of his land distribution program.

"The hunger is like a plague," said Pastor Edwin (not his real name), a brave priest whose own church was demolished in Operation Murambatsvina and who has tried to keep track of — and feed — more than 2,000 people who were dumped in remote areas.

"We’re losing an average of two people a week here to starvation," said Pastor Edwin, showing some abandoned shelters where the inhabitants have died. "Several times I’ve been called to places urgently, only to find they have already died of starvation. I see the signs everywhere — the hands and feet grey like bark."

One of the most frustrating aspects of the current crisis in Zimbabwe is that it was predicted (years ago) and the government was warned. Help was even offered. It is difficult to know how to provide aid to a people who are governed by a ruthless dictator who refuses assistance, at times denying that his people are in need.

This is Zimbabwe: The faces of the people on the street tense, angry, disappointed, hopeless and, for the vast majority, HUNGRY.