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Mugabe's people speak of hunger and death
Stephen Bevan, The Sunday Telegraph (UK)
September 23, 2007

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/23/wzim123.xml

Wilson Mangoma sighed as he looked out over the pool of raw sewage that had formed in the back yard of his tiny tin-roofed house in a suburb of Harare. A shortage of petrol has prevented the water authority from driving to the burst water pipes. As a result Budiriro, one of the capital's poorest suburbs, has also been without drinking water for more than a month. "I last took a bath three days ago," said Mr Mangoma, 30, a shopkeeper in Harare city centre. "My wife has been up and down looking for water, but in two days she has failed to get a drop." Outside, barefoot children played in the streets amid swarms of large green flies, undeterred by the stench of sewage. Many have dropped out of school because their parents can no longer afford the fees. It is among the residents of townships like Budiriro that Zimbabwe's seven-year economic decline is hitting hardest. Under President Robert Mugabe, a country that once supplied food to half of southern Africa cannot even provide water for its own people. Public services are grinding to a halt, with interruptions to both power and water supplies now part of daily life. "My wife has to walk seven kilometres to Glen Norah (a neighbouring area) to buy water from a borehole at 200,000 Zimbabwean dollars a bucket [30 pence at the unofficial rate]," complained Mr Mangoma, who earns less than Z$2million (£3) a month. "But where do we get the money? Our salaries never last three days."

The crumbling infrastructure has also led to health problems. In Harare Central Hospital more than 60 infants - many from Budiriro - are crammed into a makeshift ward, victims of the severe diarrhoea that has swept the city in the past month. The outbreak was caused by raw sewage being diverted into Lake Chivero, the city's main water supply, because there is no money to repair Harare's sewage treatment plant. At the hospital, too, the squeeze on public finances is taking its toll. A notice by the entrance warns that financial constraints mean patients may have to bring their own medicine. A nurse, who cannot be named for her own safety, said: "We handle more than 300 hundred cases per week, but there are no drugs here to treat these children or other patients. This government has let us down." Moments later the silence was torn by the wails of a young mother watching her sick child die before her eyes. "The doctor says he cannot help. There are no drugs," moaned a relative.

Outside the main cities it is even worse. At the district hospital in Kezi, 70 miles south west of the country's second city, Bulawayo, patients sleep on the floor and must provide their own food and medicine. Where once 12 doctors would have been on duty, there is only one. The rest have joined the 3.4 million professionals who have fled the country. Here in the south-west, a double tragedy is unfolding. Food production in the countryside has collapsed since 2000, when Mr Mugabe began the seizure of land from white commercial farmers. A government campaign launched in June to force businesses to halve prices led to empty shelves and closed factories. Bread, corn meal, cooking oil and other basic foodstuffs are now only found on the black market, which few here can afford. Combined with a prolonged drought, there are all the ingredients for disaster. According to the World Food Programme a third of the population will need food aid by next year.

Twelve miles from Kezi, in the village of Mayobodo, hungry villagers surged forward as trucks arrived bringing grain donated by the charity World Vision. Among them were 16-year old Thamsanqa Zulu and his three siblings: Sipho, 10, Melusi, eight and Thabani, six. "We haven't had food for a long time and our rations from donor agencies aren't enough to last us a month, because our crops failed last year due to poor rains," said Thamsanqa, whose family eats only one meal a day. While World Vision does provide each villager with corn meal, a bottle of cooking oil and a sachet of beans, it's not enough to feed a large family. Peter Sibanda, the village headman, said the state-controlled Grain Marketing Board brings in grain to sell every four months, but there is never enough for everyone. "The situation is terrible," he added. "Children no longer go to school because it's impossible to go on empty stomachs - most of them faint in school." As he searched for his name on the long list of recipients for the food, Thamsanqa told how the four children had to fend for themselves after their parents succumbed to Aids. An estimated 3,000 Zimbabweans a week die from Aids-related conditions, worsened by lack of proper nutrition and weakened immune systems. In a nearby home, Melda Ndlovu, 32, was feeding porridge to her son who has Aids and was visibly weak. "We are watching helplessly as my son wastes away," she said. "There is no food to give him and no medication is available. It is painful to watch my son waste away like this."

Meanwhile in Harare, Shamiso Chonzi, 28, looked disconsolate as she emerged from a supermarket empty-handed. Even with her job as an accountant at a leading bank, her salary cannot keep pace with inflation that last month hit 6,500 per cent. She had just withdrawn Z$2million from her account, just enough for basic groceries. But the bundle of newly printed notes was still bulging in her purse: the shop was empty. "We're living from hand to mouth," said Mrs Chonzi. "What you see in my hand are just valueless papers called Zimbabwe dollars. They cannot buy anything. My children are starving because the government has failed to import mealie meal and the shops are empty. On the black market a bucket of maize costs $1million, which is about half my salary. Mugabe has made us all beggars." But not everyone in Zimbabwe suffers. Tawanda Ndoro, 25, a gardener, sees the president pass each day in his armoured Mercedes-Benz limousine. "City life is becoming unbearable for low income earners like me," he said. "My marriage has broken up because this man has mismanaged the economy. My wife ran away because I could not provide. But surprisingly, the man who has ruined the country lives like a king."

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