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Whilst the Gaza problem continues to dominate the media, Zimbabwe's misery appears forgotten as most of the world looks the other way. A trillion dollar note has now been issued – about enough to buy 6 loaves of bread puts the UK's 'credit crunch' into perspective! The following extract from a letter (see complete version plus photos on our website: http://www.standrewsurc.org/ ) by David Harold–Barry at Silveira House is a chilling reminder:
"Two pictures have haunted me this week. The first is of a woman lying in a Harare street with her child playing close by. A frequent sight? Yes, but this time the woman is dead. And her child doesn’t know it and continues to play. People begin to realise and gather and stare. And the child doesn’t understand. Eventually a woman covers the body with a chitenge cloth. The second picture is of an uncle rushing his child to the hospital. The boy took poison to end his painful life. The uncle is desperate and asks the nurses to help but they are on strike and refuse. 'At least tell me what to do to save him,' he pleads. But they refuse again and the child dies in his arms.
These are two snapshots behind all the statistics and news reports. The media you read focuses from time on our country as our tortured history is punctuated by moments of hope always, so far, leading to disappointment and further twists of the screw, ever tightening the grip of hopelessness people feel. A further woe – cholera – has been added to the already long list: inflation beyond description, impossibility of actually getting your hands on the money you earn, starvation now threatening five million, around ninety percent of schools not functioning, unavailability of medicines, no water in some of the high density suburbs, seeds and fertiliser scarce and expensive as we face a new growing season, the press gagged, the prisons overcrowded and the whole political process blocked."
Click on the attachment below to read the full article.
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