Zimbabwe's humanitarian crisis

doi:10.1136/bmj.a1286

Published 12 August 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1286
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1286

Editorials

Zimbabwe’s humanitarian crisis

Even successful political dispensation would not immediatelyend the misery

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Zimbabwe has become a living hell for ordinary Zimbabweans,who have had to endure horrific punishment for voting the oppositionMovement for Democratic Change (MDC) to victory in the presidentialand parliamentary elections of March 2008. In a comprehensiveand meticulously researched report published on 29 July, thefaith based, non-profit organisation Solidarity Peace Trustpresents a chilling account of state sponsored atrocities andhuman rights abuses perpetrated by the army, police, and bandsof youth militia against the people of Zimbabwe in the run-upto the flawed presidential elections of 27 June.¹ The reportdocuments many abductions, beatings, mutilations, other formsof torture, and political assassinations, all occurring withina short space of three months.

In a plea for an end to political violence, the group knownas Specialist Doctors in Zimbabwe noted that some 2900 victimsof political violence, some of whom subsequently died from theirinjuries, had . . . [Full text of this article]

D Ncayiyana, emeritus professor and vice chancellor¹, L London, professor and director², D Sanders, professor and director³, A Kalebi, BDIAF fellow⁴, J Kasolo, senior lecturer⁵

¹ Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, ² School of Public Health and Family Medicine, University of Cape Town, South Africa, ³ School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa, ⁴ Department of Pathology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg South Africa, ⁵ Department of Physiology, University of Makerere, Kampala, Uganda

Correspondence to: D Ncayiyana danjn@telkomsa.net