Zimbabweans forced to eat rats

Blackjacks, grass, berries, wild figs, rats, roots and seeds meant for planting have become the staple diet of hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans, according to refugees fleeing the hunger.

While the political leaders haggle over cabinet posts in a political stalemate, ordinary Zimbabweans are either fleeing across the borders for food, or are resorting to desperate means at home to find a few morsels to eat.

"My family back home is eating berries, rape and anything else they can find when I cannot send food home to them," a Zimbabwean living at the Methodist Church in Johannesburg said last week.

"There are no beverages, no meat. We were poaching for fish in small dams with nets," said one man.

"If we can't get fish, we eat rats. Others are following the railway lines and the roads used by the grain trucks. They pick up any seeds or grains that fall off and eat them. There is nothing else we can do."

Another said poaching for meat in national parks and reserves had also become a norm, given that "it is so easy to bribe the officials so that we can go in and get some food".

Many of those spoken to last week said they had fled to South Africa to find food.

"I am here to work so that I can send food to my family. They are starving. There is no mealie meal in the shops. In the shops you have to pay in rands or American dollars for anything.

If you want to buy soap, you have to queue at the bank for three days so you have enough money for a bar," said a man who fled three weeks ago.

This week a 2kg packet of rice was selling at US$4.90, 2.5kg of cake flour at $5.60 and a bar of laundry soap cost $4.

All had the same story - their wives, parents, children, grandchildren and girlfriends would die if they did not receive food aid.

The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition said in a recent report that desperately hungry Zimbabweans were running out of survival options and had, in some instances, resorted to selling their livestock to buy food.

There were growing numbers of cases in the southern provinces where families were marrying off their underage daughters to elderly well-off men in return for food and support.

In Harare last week, firemen went on strike because they were too hungry to work.

Last week Women of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza) held a protest in Bulawayo declaring a national disaster and demanding food aid. Two leaders were arrested.

In an open letter to the government, mediator Thabo Mbeki, President Kgalema Motlanthe and SADC, Woza said despite the crisis "still nothing has been done" and "people are dying of starvation".