2 die in stampedes at Zimbabwe exhibit

A woman and a child were killed in stampedes at a Zimbabwe agriculture show packed with people lured by scarce snack foods and cheap Chinese toys and exhibitors hoping to skirt a government price freeze and sell their animals, police said Sunday.

The two died Saturday in two separate surges against the exit gates as the show at the Harare Exhibition Park was closing, police spokesman James Sabau told state radio. People were hurrying to get into lines for public transportation outside, witnesses said.

Acute gasoline shortages have crippled transportation services and commuters routinely wait more than three hours to board buses for a 30-minute trip to the capital Harare's impoverished satellite townships.

The child killed was one of scores of lost children separated from family members in large crowds.

Attendance at the six-day annual event was the highest in years, with many people hoping to find produce that has disappeared from stores along with meat, corn meal, bread, milk, eggs and other staples amid soaring inflation. Officials said about 100,000 people came on Friday alone.

Zimbabwe is in the midst of a dire economic crisis blamed largely on President Robert Mugabe's seizure of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to blacks, which began in 2000 and disrupted the agriculture-based economy.

A government order in June to slash prices of all goods and services by about half in a bid to tame the world's highest inflation. Official inflation is 7,634 percent annually, though independent estimates put actual inflation closer to 25,000 percent. The International Monetary Fund has forecast it could reach 100,000 percent by the end of the year.

The agriculture show was packed with people lured by scarce snack foods and soft drinks and stalls selling cheap Chinese toys and other goods. The show was the biggest in years and many exhibitors said they came in hopes of being allowed to sell their animals without being subjected to a government price freeze.

A cattle auction was banned Thursday at the show ground by price control authorities after it became clear bidders from butcheries, hotels and groups of private buyers were willing to pay up to 10 times the government's fixed price for livestock in the meat-starved nation.

Earlier this month, two people died in a stampede in a sugar line in the city of Bulawayo. In southern Zimbabwe, another woman died of strangulation when her neck scarf caught in a gas-fueled generator during the nation's daily power outages.

Attorneys this week reported clients facing acute food shortages in prisons. Relatives asked to bring food often could not find enough in the shops or get rides to prisons.

A panel of lawmakers has reported acute shortages of basic foods in government youth training centers, which are used to train the ruling-party militants blamed for much of country's political violence and intimidation.

The state Sunday Mail newspaper, meanwhile, reported 36,000 tons of wheat destined for Zimbabwe was being held at the Mozambique port of Beira awaiting payment.

With shortages of bread and bakery products worsening, Didymus Mutasa, the powerful security and lands minister, said the nation's wheat was down to a week's supply.

"We do not have wheat stocks at the moment. We are feeding from hand to mouth. As soon as we pay, a little amount is brought in ... this is usually a week's supply," he was quoted as saying by the paper.