Zimbabwe’s opposition party gave warning yesterday that the country was descending into a “war zone”, and appealed for international intervention to resolve the escalating crisis.

Tendai Biti, the Secretary-General of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said that at least ten people had been killed and hundreds injured in postelection violence unleashed by Robert Mugabe’s regime. He accused the Government of engaging in a policy of “deliberate starvation” by cutting off food supplies to areas known to be opposition strongholds. About 400 MDC activists had been rounded up and arrested, he added. “The situation is desperate. We are not able to function because of those arrests.”

Speaking to journalists in neighbouring South Africa, where he and the MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, have sought temporary refuge, he said hundreds of homes had also been burnt and at least 3,000 families displaced since the March 29 presidential and parliamentary polls in which Mr Mugabe’s Government is believed to have been trounced.

Three weeks after the vote, the country’s electoral authorities have still not released the results. Yesterday they announced further delays in a partial recount of 23 parliamentary seats won by the Opposition and now expected to be declared for Mr Mugabe’s Zanu (PF) party, to give it back the control of Parliament it lost for the first time since independence in 1980.

The MDC gave warning that political deadlock caused by the failure to announce the results had played into the hands of hardliners around Mr Mugabe who now intended to use violence to shore up their positions. Mr Biti said: “There is a war in Zimbabwe being waged by Mugabe’s regime against the people. The regime has unleashed violence on the people. The police have been turning a blind eye.”

Mr Tsvangirai has not returned to Zimbabwe for almost two weeks because it is feared he would be arrested. Regional concern about the worsening crisis has grown over the past few days, with African leaders coming under unprecedented pressure to take a stand. Yesterday the 53-member African Union – which goes to pains not to criticise the internal affairs of member states – finally added its voice to those calling for the release of the results.

“The African Union wishes to express its concern over the delay observed in the announcement of Zimbabwe’s election results, which creates an atmosphere of tension,” it said in a statement.

Kofi Annan, the former UN Secre-tary-General who, along with Ban Ki Moon, his successor, was due to attend a conference today in Ghana, has criticised the continent’s leaders for a muted response to the growing crisis, which he termed “a rather dangerous situation”. Mr Ban said he would raise Zimbabwe at the conference.

Mr Tsvangirai, who last week called for South Africa’s President Mbeki to step down as the officially appointed mediator for Zimbabwe, left for Nigeria and Ghana yesterday to lobby Africa’s leaders for more support.

The Southern African Development Community, which appointed Mr Mbeki last year, is hopelessly split, with younger leaders from Botswana, Zambia and Malawi who did not fight in anticolonial liberation struggles openly saying that Mr Mugabe has to go for the good of the entire region. Jacob Zuma, the leader of South Africa’s African National Congress, has also distanced himself from the “quiet diplomacy” of Mr Mbeki, whom he hopes to replace in elections next year. He leaves on a trip to Germany, France and Britain this week and will again let it be known that he now favours “change”.

Political analysts say that, even if Mr Mugabe is engineered back into power, his days are numbered. “The place is a ruin and the people know who is responsible,” a government official told The Times.

Meanwhile, a Chinese ship carrying arms destined for the Zimbabwe regime was reportedly heading for Angola after South African unions refused to unload it.

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