Humanitarian groups are warning that more than half the people in Zimbabwe will be dependent on food aid by the end of the year. The World Food Programme said that the food situation was "very serious and very critical in many areas" in the country once called the breadbasket of Africa. "We estimated back in June 2008 that around five million people in Zimbabwe would need food assistance," Richard Lee, a WFP spokesman in Johannesburg, South Africa, told Al Jazeera on Saturday. "The figure now is around seven million people - well over half the population. It is a very, very serious situation; very critical in many areas."