UN humanitarian envoy Jan Egeland left Zimbabwe today after a four-day tour and said its humanitarian crisis was deepening, with millions in need of aid.
"The humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe is very serious. The need for international aid is big and growing," Mr Egeland, the UN humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said last night after talks with President Robert Mugabe and government officials.
UN humanitarian envoy Jan Egeland
"Millions of people are struggling with their back against the wall to fend off hunger, to fend off AIDS and a lot of other things," he said after visiting people living in shacks since they were evicted during government demolitions of shantytowns.
Mr Mugabe denies responsibility for the crisis and says domestic and international opponents have sabotaged the economy in retaliation for his programme of seizing white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to blacks. He also accuses the United States and Zimbabwe's former colonial power Britain of trying to use the United Nations to settle political disputes.
Mr Egeland said the UN would be feeding in excess of three million people by next February in Zimbabwe, where the country's agriculture output has fallen by more than half in the last five years.
Yesterday Mr Mugabe rejected a UN offer to provide temporary shelter for victims of the slum clearance programme but did accept an offer of food aid.
The UN says Zimbabwe needs emergency aid including tents to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of homeless but the government says it only needs help to provide permanent homes.
Mr Egeland said there was progress on aid, especially for people suffering with HIV/AIDS. "The people of Zimbabwe are suffering under several big problems. I am hopeful that we will have a more positive partnership in 2006 than we have had in the past," he said.
The UN envoy said the government crackdown could have been avoided and urged authorities to halt further evictions after reports in the past month that families already living in the open were being forced to move again by authorities. "I am again appealing for the eviction campaign to stop, there is not enough shelter ready to house those who have been evicted."
The evictions, which Mr Mugabe argues were meant to root out illegal trade in scant basic commodities, left 700,000 people homeless or without a livelihood and affected 2.4 million others, UN estimates show. A U.N. report criticised Harare and said the demolitions were carried out "with indifference to human suffering".