PICS: Zimbabweans go hungry as coronavirus compounds climate woes
|Published
Harare - Rosemary Pamire struggled to feed
her family well before Zimbabwe entered lockdown in March to
combat the coronavirus pandemic. Now she can hardly put together
a meal a day as the country faces a deepening food crisis.
Sitting on a bed in her two-room lodgings in Harare's poor
Mbare township, Pamire told Reuters she had exhausted the little
food she had stocked up during the first 21 days of an extended
seven-week lockdown.
"We just eat once a day now. I wish the government could
give us food to feed my family," Pamire said.
Before the coronavirus outbreak, 7.7 million Zimbabweans
faced food shortages after a drought and cyclone in 2019 and
patchy rains this year, linked to climate change and worsened by
rampant inflation and a foreign exchange shortage.
Now it faces a triple threat of climate breakdown, monetary
woes and a new economic crisis caused by the lockdown.
Rosemary Pamire stands in the doorway of her family home during a nationwide lockdown to help curb the coronavirus. Picture: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters
The government's latest figures show that 8.5 million
Zimbabweans are now food insecure, while international aid
agencies say up to 45 million people face hunger in southern
Africa due to climate-induced food shortages.
The government has promised a food grant of $2.4 billion
Zimbabwe dollars ($96 million) targeting 1 million people for
six months, without saying where it would get the money.
It is pleading with donors, who would normally be reluctant
to help because of its debt arrears, and this month it received
$7 million from the World Bank.
Pamire said she had registered with social welfare officials
but she, like many others, has yet to receive anything.
Rosemary Pamire and her daughter wash bottles for recycling. Picture: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters
That has left the burden to fend for the family with her
19-year-old daughter Anna, who sells ice lollies and bottled
water at Mbare vegetable market at the risk of arrest by police
because it is illegal.
"At times in the evening when we don't have maize-meal, mum
will just tell us to have the ice lollies and water and we will
just go to sleep," said Anna.
On a good day Anna sells a pack of ice lollies for 110
Zimbabwe dollars ($4.40). After buying new stock, only $1 is
left for the family of seven to buy food, including the staple
maize-meal and sugar and cooking oil.
Densel Pamire plays outside his family's home during Covid-19 lockdown in Harare. Picture: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters
Pamire, who lives with her four grown children and two
grandchildren, used to buy clothes and shoes from Zambia for
resell at home and earned $100 after a good trip. But the border
is closed, her passport expired, and she does not have money to
renew it.
The market where Pamire's two adult sons carted goods around
for a fee has been shut for six weeks, just like all informal
markets from where millions of Zimbabweans were earning a
living.