Post date: Dec 21, 2011 2:58:56 PM
Drought has decimated parts of the landscape in Zimbabwe where families are struggling to feed themselves and hunger is becoming increasingly common. Particularly vulnerable are the elderly, often living alone in rural areas abandoned by the young.
MAWABENI, ZIMBABWE (REUTERS) -Just over 80 kilometres from Bulawayo in a small village called Mawabeni, Sidingo Muleya tills the dry earth in the fields outside her home.
She and her husband live alone in the small homestead next to the field. The couple don't know exactly how old they are but they have been living on the land for a lifetime and say the situation now is worse than it has ever been before.
Drought has decimated the landscape and destroyed the small maize crop they used to rely on to survive. These days they wait for handouts to eat, often going for two or three days with nothing.
"We have a lot of problems, we have no children and without children we are suffering. I sometimes get odd jobs here and there that I get paid for in food so that's what we eat. The ploughing season has arrived but there's nothing for us to plough so we're just sitting here. That's why we can't cook, there is no maize, we have nothing, its dry and we are just seated," Muleya said.
Her husband has diabetes and without regular meals is getting sicker by the day.
"For the last two days we have been eating barley, someone gave us barley and I have been cooking that and feeding him, he is on medication," she said.
Mayor of Gwanda, the local authority, Lionel De Necker says the number of people reaching food crisis level is rapidly rising and they are appealing for help.
"Crops don't do very well in our region, hence we focus more mostly on cattle, so at this time with global changes in terms of climate, it has worsened the situation in actually in our region the fact that there is no food for most of the people and what people are now resorting to do is to sell off their livestock to try and buy the staple maize etc to survive with their families," he said.
The fact that most young people leave the area in search of work and to chase their own dreams means it's often the older generation and very young children that suffer the most.
"What has happened mostly is that when a child graduates from school, they leave and they cross right next to the border, they either go to Botswana or go to South Africa, you then don't get the workforce, its already moved, if you go to the rural areas you will find that most of the places are the old people that have remained looking after these beasts also being accompanied by a very small kid who is going to primary school," said De Necker.
Drought has affected large parts of the countryside in Zimbabwe where its estimated as many as 1.4 million people are facing food shortages.
The United Nations said on Friday (December 17) it was seeking 268 million US dollars for aid efforts in Zimbabwe next year, with half the money to be used to buy food for people caught up in the food crisis.
While food shortages have increased the number of people with malnutrition and severe hunger, as many as 13 million people are estimated to be drinking unsafe water adding to the spread of disease.