Almost 6 million Zimbabweans ?? almost half the population ?? will need food aid by January, said Kevin Farrell, the WFP's chief representative in Zimbabwe. Yet the agency lacks the resources to meet even its November target of 3 million beneficiaries, he said.

"It is an extremely serious situation, and it is only going to get worse," he said. "We will all have to work nonstop over the coming months if we are to prevent millions of people from starving in Zimbabwe."

A shortage of hard currency has crippled the government's ability to import food and buy the fuel needed to distribute it, the WFP said. Independent groups have denounced political bias in the distribution and selling of food by the state and ruling party.

Droughts have led to acute shortages of corn, the staple food for the population of 12.5 million ?? a problem exacerbated by the government's chaotic program to seize thousands of white-owned farms for redistribution to black settlers.

With inflation expected to reach 200 percent by the end of the year and stores depleted of corn, bread, milk and sugar, even Zimbabwean wage earners are struggling to feed their families. Wage earners do not qualify for food aid.

Political and economic turmoil over the past two years has left more than 60 percent of the population jobless. Tens of thousands of black farm workers have lost their livelihood in farm seizures.

"The humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe is deteriorating at a dangerously rapid pace," it said.

No estimates of hunger-related deaths were available.

International relief efforts, which began February, were delayed as the government debated whether to allow help from independent relief agencies and whether to authorize imports of genetically modified food. The government lifted a ban on biotech food imports in August.

Farrell appealed for more help from the government and non-governmental agencies.

"The number of those in need keeps soaring, and the WFP cannot cope on its own," he said. "Only a collective effort can hope to combat this crisis."

(China Daily November 29, 2002)