ZIMBABWE’S OPPOSITION leader Morgan Tsvangirai has called on western governments to send humanitarian aid to help the country’s ailing population and pressurise the parties to overcome the impasse on the power-sharing agreement.
The plea for increased aid from the Movement for Democratic Change leader came during his visit to Europe this week and coincides with claims by health experts that up to 1.4 million people are at risk from a cholera epidemic which has already claimed a reported 76 lives.
Médecins Sans Frontières said that it had treated 500 patients in Harare so far and an average of 38 new patients were being admitted every day.
“Things are getting out of hand,” said MSF officer Precious Matarutse. “There are so many patients that the nurses are overwhelmed. In the observation area one girl died sitting on a bench.”
Zimbabwe’s sanitation system has broken down completely and according to doctors there are no drugs left in the country’s hospitals and clinics to treat people who become ill from associated diseases.
Yesterday a group of medical practitioners were stopped from protesting in the streets of the capital over the lack of medicines. “It is useless for us to come to work, because there are no medicines,” said Amon Siveregi, head of the Hospital Doctors’ Association.
Regional leaders recently failed to secure a breakthrough in the power-sharing negotiations during an emergency summit at which it was recommended that the disputed home affairs ministry be shared.
After meeting lawmakers in Strasbourg yesterday Mr Tsvangirai said EU countries must “put as much pressure as they can to ensure that President Mugabe and ourselves . . . come to a conclusion on this political impasse”.
The EU has already blacklisted 172 people linked to Mr Mugabe’s government and frozen long-term aid projects as a response to the ruling regime’s refusal to share power.