Sixty-three people, 48 of them children, died from hunger last month in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo, a health official was quoted as saying in a newspaper report Friday.

A top health official in the city, Zanele Hwalima, told the Zimbabwe Independent that "poverty, food shortages and inability to access nutrients" contributed to the deaths.

Health officials in Bulawayo were not immediately available to confirm the figures to AFP.

Aid agencies estimate that some 5.5 million Zimbabweans -- 2,5 million of them in urban areas -- need emergency food aid this year.

The United Nations last week appealed for close to 100 million dollars (82 million euros) to meet "massive humanitarian needs" in Zimbabwe caused by economic hardships, chronic food shortages and the AIDS pandemic.

Zimbabwe is reeling under severe hardships with inflation hovering at over 600 percent, unemployment at close to 70 percent and critical shortages of food, medicine and fuel.

Two-thirds of Zimbabwe's 11,6 million people live below the poverty line.

The Bulawayo City Council, dominated by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, in January released a report stating that 65 people, most of them children under the age of five, had died of malnutrition and other hunger-related cases between August and December of last year - Sapa-AFP.