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Zimbabwe was facing a food security crisis even before the coronavirus pandemic began, but a lockdown to stop the spread of COVID-19 has exacerbated the country’s economic woes and further restricted the food supply. Now more than half the country’s 15 million people are in need of food assistance.
The World Food Program was already assisting 3.5 million Zimbabweans before the coronavirus struck. Cyclical periods of drought and flooding have interrupted domestic food production, while hyperinflation, fueled by the government’s reintroduction of a local currency last year, has caused the price of imported goods to skyrocket. The addition of a five-week lockdown in response to the coronavirus turned Zimbabwe into “one of the world’s top global food crises,” according to a new report from a group of United Nations agencies.