Help plea as Zimbabwe slips into starvation

The Church of England’s two most senior leaders launched an appeal for Zimbabwe where they said the humanitarian crisis is now at an "appalling level".

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Archbishop of York John Sentamu have called for donations for medical supplies, food and clean water for the stricken country’s desperate people.People can’t afford to wait for a political solution, was the holy men’s message. Without urgent urgent help, Dr Williams said, "people will die. They'll die quickly, unpleasantly, and children and young people will bear the brunt of it." Many of those deaths would come from disease, said Archbishop Sentamu. "The spread of cholera, I'm afraid, will just increase because there isn't clean water. So in the end, if people don't heed this particular appeal, there'll be more and more graves". Dr Williams told BBC News: "I think the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe is now at an appalling level.”

Half the country’s population is now under threat of starvation, it is estimated, while deaths from cholera have soared in just the last couple of weeks from 3,000 towards 4,000."Everyone knows about the rate of inflation,” Dr Williams noted, “but I think the main thing is the sheer level at which people are at risk of starvation." The appeal made on Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, the Christian season of fasting and abstinence leading up to Easter, coincides with a worldwide appeal within the church for money for humanitarian aid for Zimbabwe. Dr Williams called on Christians around the world to "pray, fast and give". The money will be collected by London-based charity, the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (USPG) to buy medical supplies, clean water, food and other humanitarian.

In spite of Zimbabwe’s deepening crisis, the United Nation's World Food Programme recently reported that donor countries had actually reduced the amount they were giving. The UN said donors were apparently waiting to see what would come of the power-sharing deal between President Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai before committing to further giving.

Archbishop Sentamu has been scathing about Robert Mugabe, and publicly cut up his clerical collar on BBC television in 2007, promising to go without one until the President left office. Still collarless, Dr Sentamu, told people they should give money now, rather than waiting in the expectation of a political solution in Zimbabwe. "There is this seeming political solution by power sharing, but the truth is, as long as the Home Office Department is not controlled other than by Mugabe and his friends, just forget it! Because security won't return and people won't feel safe," he said.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children