Zimbabwe is on the brink of an unprecedented famine after its worst harvest since independence in 1980. The plight of Zimbabweans is compounded by the deliberate starvation of most of the population because of their support for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

A crop assessment by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says that the country that once fed scores of famine-stricken African nations will harvest only 575,000 tonnes of maize, the national staple, from last summer's crop - only 28 per cent of the grain needed to feed the country's estimated 11.8 million people.

Already 29 per cent of the population are “chronically malnourished,” according to the Health Ministry and the UN. A similar percentage of children suffer stunting.

In Bulawayo, cases of malnutrition in hospitals have increased 110 per cent in two months.

Rural stocks of food will start running out in August, according to the FAO, when more than two million will have to be fed or face starvation. By January the number will have risen to 5.1 million. The Government gives assurances that it has imported 500,000 tonnes of maize, but there is no evidence of it. The FAO has forecast a shortfall of one million tonnes of grain.

In spite of the dire situation, President Mugabe's regime is maintaining a total ban on famine relief by local and international aid agencies. What little food the Government has for distribution is handed to supporters of the ruling Zanu (PF) party.

“It's a catastrophe,” said an aid worker who asked not to be named. “It is much worse than the drought of 1991-92 [when thousands of head of cattle and wildlife died of starvation but people were fed from ample food reserves]. Now there is no preparedness.”

After being subjected to three months of savage political violence before the universally condemned presidential run-off elections last week, and trapped by an economy in collapse, Zimbabweans are now about to be afflicted by chronic hunger.

“There is no village [in the low-rainfall western provinces of Matabeleland and Midlands] that is not touched by hunger and malnutrition,” said Effie Ncube, the director of a small local aid agency. “We go out on a weekly basis to see what they cook and eat. Many of them are eating wild fruits, nothing you could call a decent meal.

“Only Zanu (PF) 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.”

In a small office in central Bulawayo, the capital of western Zimbabwe, Mr Ncube sits at a desk, filling in “history of violence” reports as he interviews a constant stream of rural people needing medical attention after being assaulted by militias of Mr Mugabe's Zanu (PF) party.

In the week since the elections on June 27, most of the violence in rural Matabeleland had subsided, although it continued in several pockets, he said. Most of the rural youth dragooned into youth and “war veteran” militias to carry out the violence to force people to vote have drifted away.

The illegal roadblocks to stop people - especially the injured - from fleeing their homes after attack have been taken down. This has released a surge of people with broken limbs and lacerated and bruised backs, buttocks and legs to seek help for the first time, more than a week after they were assaulted.

Gogo (grandmother) Christina Thabani, 68, was dragged out of her hut at midnight in Umzinghwane district about 50 miles (80km) south of Bulawayo last week, and thrashed until they broke her right arm. Then she was forced to dance and sing songs idolising Mr Mugabe for several hours. Her broken arm led to a cruel irony. When she got to the polling station she was unable to use her hand to write, and officials insisted that she was assisted to vote.

“Someone followed me into the polling booth. He put his X on Mugabe for me. I don't want Mugabe,” she said. She also told how earlier this year, she and everyone in the village went to their head man to register for famine relief. “They took our names, but then the headman and the war veterans in the area vetted the list. Everyone who they thought was MDC had their names crossed off.”

A truck from the Grain Marketing Board, the state monopoly maize dealer, comes perhaps once a month and hands out 50kg (110lb) bags of maize - but only to Zanu (PF) supporters.

“You see them eating and you get angry, but there is nothing you can do,” she said. “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.” One after another, the victims in Mr Ncube's office told the same story, and also how there was “absolutely no food” after the disastrous harvest.

“I have eight grandchildren and two children,” Mrs Thabani said. “They are starving.” On June 5, the Government shut down all aid agencies and charities. Mr Mugabe claimed that they were using their food distribution to bribe people to vote for the MDC - exactly the tactic that Zanu (PF) is using.

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