Five million people face starvation in troubled Zimbabwe

Power-sharing talks deadlocked while UN warns of humanitarian emergency caused by failed harvest

Aid experts are warning that millions of Zimbabwe's people face starvation as the country's political leaders remain deadlocked over a power-sharing deal and the economy heads for total collapse.

While officials of the Southern African Development Community prepare for a meeting tomorrow in Swaziland, where they will try to persuade President Robert Mugabe and opposition leaders to resume negotiations, the United Nations World Food Programme has warned that the number of Zimbabweans needing food aid is expected to double by early next year, to just over five million. The UN has appealed for an extra $140m (£81m) to deal with the crisis.

Richard Lee, a WFP spokesman in Johannesburg, said the organisation was already giving emergency food aid to 2.5 million people in Zimbabwe after the failure of this year's maize harvest. On top of erratic weather, which resulted in droughts in some areas and flooding in others, there were shortages of seed and fertilisers. The government, which buys all grain production, had also failed to set a price that would encourage farmers to grow more than they needed for their own families.

But the "worst thing", the WFP official added, was the decision of Mr Mugabe's government to ban all foreign aid work for three months earlier this year, during the violence-racked second round of the presidential election. The ban was lifted at the end of August. "This delayed the launch of our programme to feed some 1.7 million people," Mr Lee told The Independent on Sunday. "They were more vulnerable as a result."

The 29 March elections, which saw the ruling Zanu-PF party lose its parliamentary majority and Mr Mugabe trailing his challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai, in the presidential poll, set off a period of turmoil that worsened the plight of rural Zimbabweans. Runaway inflation of 231 million per cent has virtually destroyed the cash economy, and malnutrition, coupled with endemic rates of HIV/Aids, has reduced female life expectancy to 34, the world's lowest. Intimidation of voters, which caused Mr Tsvangirai to pull out of the second round of the presidential election in June, and the halt in food aid reduced many rural areas to a desperate state.

The WFP has described the situation as a "national crisis", with food having run out in some areas. In districts worst affected by drought, including the Zambezi valley and much of Matabeleland and Manicaland in the south and south-west of the country, villagers are reported to be surviving on roots and near-inedible wild fruits. Those who have one or two animals are being forced to exchange them for food and other basic supplies, such as cooking oil and soap.

Planting of maize, Zimbabwe's staple crop, should be well under way now for harvesting next April and May. But last week the Commercial Farmers' Union of Zimbabwe said it had all but written off this year's planting season, because seed, fertiliser and fuel were in critically short supply, thanks to lack of foreign currency and deteriorating national transport systems. The president of the CFU, Trevor Gifford, said there was only enough seed on the market to plant just under a million acres of maize, compared with the 2.5 million acres needed to feed the country.

Mr Lee said international donors had been "remarkably generous" with food aid, but Zimbabwe was unlikely to get the development funds it needed until there was evidence that Mr Mugabe was prepared to share power. Hopes were raised by the peace deal signed on 15 September, but all the signs are that Zimbabwe's 84-year-old President is seeking to ignore it. The US is now threatening further sanctions if the agreement collapses.