Harare Inflation in Zimbabwe has reached 231 million per cent and has forced the nation into further poverty, a state newspaper said. The UN food agency has made an urgent appeal for £81 million in food aid to help more than five million Zimbabweans facing severe hunger.

The World Food Programme said that without extra contributions it would run out of supplies in January.

“Millions of Zimbabweans have already run out of food or are surviving on just one meal a day and the crisis is going to get much worse in the coming months,” Mustapha Darboe, the regional director of the programme, said.

Many families have exchanged livestock for buckets of maize or are eating wild food to survive. The UN agency estimated that 83 per cent of Zimbabweans were living on about £1 a day and that 45 per cent of the population were malnourished. (AFP)

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