By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON, Sept 17 (Reuters) - The humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe has become the world's worst but is still largely ignored by the international community, a member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said on Monday.

David Coltart, one of Zimbabwe's leading white politicians and member of parliament for a mainly black constituency, said the crisis in the former British colony had far outgrown the ability of any single nation to tackle.

He accused United Nations food and health agencies of a gross dereliction of duty in keeping silent on the issue.

"Zimbabwe is the world's worst humanitarian crisis -- but no one is talking about it in public," he told Reuters on a visit to London. "It is absolutely catastrophic. The U.N. must act.

"Not only are people starving to death every day, but the collapse of the economy is starting to destabilise the region."

Inflation in the country once known as the breadbasket of Africa is running at around 4,500 percent, unemployment is at 80 percent and price controls have stripped supermarket shelves bare.

Even staple foods like bread and maize meal are virtually impossible to get hold of and people have been reduced to scavenging.

President Robert Mugabe, in power since independence in 1980, blames the economic disaster on meddling by outside countries, including former colonial power Britain.

They in turn deny the accusation and blame Mugabe and his ruling ZANU-PF party for incompetence, nepotism and corruption.

"What we need is a massive humanitarian relief effort. Mugabe is deliberately using food as a weapon," said Coltart, who is secretary for legal affairs for a faction of the MDC.

"The trouble is that on the surface everything is quiet -- it is in the hospitals and in the morgues that you see the truth," he added.

Coltart said mediation talks with South Africa were making some headway on issues like a new constitution, electoral law, security amd relaxing draconian media restrictions, but there was still a long way to go.

And time was running short with presidential and possibly parliamentary elections expected in March next year.

"We need to get agreement on a new constitution by then, and it doesn't give us much time to finish an awful lot of work," Coltart said.

He urged his divided party to end internal feuding and prepare to fight the elections with a united front.

"If we fight the election still divided it will be a gift to ZANU-PF and a disasted for Zimbabwe," Coltart added.

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