Zimbabwe crisis deepens
2008-12-02 17:45
Special Report
A classical music presenter for the BBC has been arrested and is in custody in Zimbabwe.
Harare - Zimbabwe on Tuesday slipped deeper into crisis as the death toll from a cholera epidemic neared 500 and members of President Robert Mugabe's armed forces were accused of taking part in a looting spree.
While the army played down violence by a "small number of indisciplined soldiers" directed against dealers in desperately-short foreign currency, the leader of the opposition said the country was in complete collapse.
With the capital Harare without water for a second day running, staff at the city's main hospital stayed away from work. Employees also failed to show at hospitals in two other major cities, Bulawayo and Mutare.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said the cholera outbreak could accelerate rapidly unless people have quick access to treatment.
In its latest toll, the Geneva-based WHO said that 483 people were now known to have died from the water-borne disease.
The most affected region was Budirio, a province of the capital, where about 5%nbsp;829 suspected cases have been recorded, said Elisabeth Byrs, spokesperson for the UN humanitarian affairs bureau.
The children's agency Unicef said it was launching a four-month emergency campaign to boost supplies of clean drinking water and care for 250 000 orphans - just a fraction of those who have lost their parents to the Aids epidemic.
The state mouthpiece Herald newspaper meanwhile reported that 390 people had died and that water had been cut off in almost all the capital's suburbs, industrial areas and its central business district.
The shutdown led residents to criss-cross the city in search of water, even resorting to lifting manholes to access pipes, and forced companies in the industrial area to run a skeleton staff or exempt workers from duty.
Informal traders were cashing in on the crisis, selling a 25-litre plastic container of water for $25, with water authorities citing a lack of chemicals as the reason for the shutdown, the newspaper said.
Anger towards black marketers, long accused of profiting from the country's misery, has been steadily growing with the cholera crisis.
The looting on Monday in Harare broke out during an operation by soldiers to arrest illegal forex dealers, degenerating into a looting binge in several shops, which was finally halted with the intervention of the police.
"Whatever is happening is not the official position of the army," army spokesperson Colonel Simon Tsatsi said.
"We don't subscribe to that. It's probably just a small number of undisciplined soldiers who are doing this."
An AFP journalist said the scene was calm on Tuesday morning, but with fewer traders on the streets than normal.
- AFP