Johannesburg - South Africa said Friday it would send a government delegation to neighbouring Zimbabwe to assess the worsening health and food crisis in the country.

The delegation, to be led by a senior official in the office of President Kgalema Motlanthe, is to meet with government, aid agencies, trade unions and churches to assess the needs of desperate Zimbabweans.

Government spokesman Themba Maseko said the delegation, which will report back to a ministerial meeting in South Africa next week, would aim to ensure "that humanitarian assistance is delivered in a non- partisan way and that the beneficiaries of the aid are the ordinary Zimbabweans."

President Robert Mugabe is known to prioritize supporters of his Zanu-PF when it comes to distributing international aid. A front-page photograph in South Africa's The Star newspaper showed a smiling Mugabe in a grey suit handing out bags of maize meal.

The South African mission follows an aborted attempt by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan and former US president Jimmy Carter to travel to Zimbabwe on November 22 to shine a light on the humanitarian drama. Mugabe's regime refused them visas.

Around half Zimbabwe's population of 12 million people are in need of food aid and nearly 600 people have succumbed to cholera since August as health, education, food production and sanitation systems are ground to halt by an economic meltdown.

Despite appeals from aid agencies for humanitarian aid, Western donors have been loathe to throw money at the crisis while Mugabe maintains his stranglehold on power.

South Africa, traditionally an ally of Mugabe, has shown increasing frustration with the impasse, saying Thursday it could not sit by "while people die of starvation."

In November, Pretoria said it was withholding 300 million rand (29 million dollars) in agricultural aid until a power-sharing government between Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was in place.

In a sign of the severity of the situation, Mugabe's normally defiant government ate humble pie Wednesday and appealed for international aid to deal with the cholera outbreak, which it termed a national emergency.

British aid agency Oxfam has warned that 300,000 people are at risk of contracting the water-borne disease, which has already notched up more than 12,000 cases. The outbreak has spilt over into South Africa, where at least eight people have died in the border town of Musina.

Meanwhile, human rights defenders have stepped up calls for the release of activist Jestina Mukoko, director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, who was abducted from her home on Wednesday by suspected intelligence agents.

Mukoko's whereabouts is unknown.

The South African Council of Churches and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa on Friday joined calls from within Zimbabwe for her to be brought to safety. (dpa)