Aid workers: Famine growing in Zimbabwe

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, July 5 (UPI) -- Inaction on the part of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has left his country's citizens struggling with a growing famine, aid workers say.

Effie Ncube, who runs a small aid agency in the African country, alleged the government has only offered food supplies to members of the Zimbabwe African National Union and has left all others to slowly starve, The Times of London reported Saturday.

"There is no village (in the low-rainfall western provinces of Matabeleland and Midlands) that is not touched by hunger and malnutrition," Ncube said.

"Only ZANU people have a better life, because the government gives them food. The majority support the opposition and the majority are being starved by the government."

Those not receiving food say they are forced to buy goods from ZANU supporters, who charge Movement for Democratic Change supporters exorbitant prices.

"You see them eating and you get angry, but there is nothing you can do," Zimbabwean resident Christina Thabani told the Times. "Sometimes they sell it to you, for a very high price, but only at night, because they will get into trouble for feeding MDC people."