Urgent food aid needed for 4 million Zimbabwean children

Many children go hungry, and without a significant international response, children could die, according to the humanitarian aid organization Save the Children. Zimbabwe’s food emergency has been exacerbated by high inflation and persistently rising costs of essential goods and services.

According to the humanitarian aid organization Save the Children, many children are suffering from hunger, and, without a major international response, children could lose their lives. Zimbabwe’s food emergency has been compounded by high inflation and a continuous rise in the costs of basic goods and services.

All of these factors, according to Save the Children, are having an impact on children’s lives. In Zimbabwe, children are the first victims of the climate crisis and the economic crisis. Save the Children describes their situation as alarming, with cases of malnutrition.

Children eat only once a day and walk for hours to fetch water – because rivers and wells have dried up. Parents withdraw their children from school to send them to work or marry their young daughters to wealthier families who have food.

The hunger season is at its peak but is expected to extend beyond next month. Many farmers have lost their crops and will have nothing to harvest in March.

Save the Children called on donors and the international community to take urgent action now to avoid a deterioration of what it already considers to be a critical situation.