Basic services have
broken downActionAid has launched an appeal to provide support to more than 120,000 people in Zimbabwe in a very challenging humanitarian situation. All basic services have broken down,
including food security, clean water provision, health care and education.
Lack of food is becoming a key problem as we enter the peak hunger period of December to March. It is estimated
that over 5.1 million Zimbabweans – nearly half the population – will be in need of food aid by the end of January 2009.
Cholera has spread to nine out of Zimbabwe’s ten
provinces. Hundreds have died and the UN predicts up to 60,000 cases. Families are drinking and washing from sewage-infected pools and shallow wells because the sanitation system has completely
collapsed. Many major hospitals have closed and clinics in rural areas have few, if any, drugs.Education is also near to collapse. As teachers and support staff leave to seek other sources of
income, children have been unable to take end of year exams.Make a donation to ActionAid's Zimbabwe crisis
appeal
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
Pakistani Hindu minority supporters of Islamic charity organisation Jamaat-ud-Dawa protest in Hyderabad, December 16, 2008. About 200 Hindu women protested in Pakistan on Tuesday against restrictions on the Islamic charity that ...
