At #AIWA! NO! News, we focus on people and events that affect people's lives. We bring topics to light that often go under-reported, listening to all sides of the story and giving a 'voice to the voiceless'.
The Head of Paediatrics at Parirenyatwa Hospital Dr Azza Mashumba broke down on Wednesday whilst explaining the dire situation at the hospital., 13 March 2019
Zimbabwean Diaspora Health Alliance (ZDHA) is an organisation that represents over 35 charities) and is happy to inform you that we are working together with the Core Group that will help as guardians of the Save Our Hospitals initiative that has been set up through the initiative of Hopewell Chin’ono
Senior doctors at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals yesterday narrated to the minister of Health Obadiah Moyo, of the horrors and deaths occurring everyday at major hospitals because of acute shortages of drugs and hospital consumables.
May we take this opportunity to advise everyone to wait while the structures are being put in place. We hope the new committee in Zimbabwe will be able to put the structures within a week or so .
We need to know the amount of resources that are needed and how they will be accounted for as well as the channels of getting them to Zimbabwe.
Nehanda Radio//Hopewell Chin’ono with the founder owner of CNN, Ted Turner in Atlanta
Once this is put in place we will make an appeal to you to make your donations through a transparent and accountable process. We are working as a community and not individuals.
No one is above this cause . We are calling on all charities and individuals who want to help our hospitals to be in touch with Zimbabwean Diaspora Health Alliance at: zdha2018@gmail.com
More than 100 people have been killed and 843,000 affected by torrential rains in Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa, the UN and officials said, as tropical cyclone Idai is expected to hit the continent’s south-eastern countries.
Cyclone Idai has affected more than 1.5 million people in the three southern African countries, according to the United Nations and government officials.
Cyclone Idai hits Zimbabwe..Civil Protection Unit issues floods warning
Several injured, properties damaged as Cyclone Idai hits Mozambique
Flash floods swept across Malawi killing at least 56 people
The storm which brought floodwater and widespread destruction to Mozambique and Malawi has reached Zimbabwe.
The streets of Beira in Mozambique after tropical storm Desmond made landfall on January 22. The country is now bracing itself for tropical cyclone Idai, which is due to make landfall on Thursday. Image: Twitter/TinoMalinga
The floods in Mozambique, one of Africa’s poorest countries, have already destroyed 5 756 homes, affecting 15 467 households and 141 325 people.
115 killed as Cyclone Idai threatens to batter southern Africa
At least 66 people in Mozambique, and four in South Africa were killed, after heavy rains caused flash flooding.
In neighbouring Malawi, the death toll rose to 56, an official said on Wednesday, with the country on high alert for cyclone Idai, which is expected to make landfall on Thursday or Friday.
Almost 83,000 people have been displaced in the country since storms began more than a week ago, causing rivers to break their banks, leaving villages underwater, and knocking out power and water supplies in some areas.
At least 31 people have been killed and dozens are missing in parts of eastern Zimbabwe after the country was hit by tropical cyclone Idai which lashed neighbouring Mozambique and Malawi, the government said.
Homes, schools, businesses, hospitals and police stations have been destroyed. Roads have been washed away and thousands are stranded by heavy flooding.
Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Information said on Saturday that the deaths were mainly from Chimanimani East, including two students, while at least 40 other people have been injured.
It added that the Zimbabwean national army was leading rescue efforts to airlift students from a damaged school and others trapped by the storm. READ MORE
A group of people, who fled their homes, was “marooned” on top of a mountain waiting to be rescued, but strong winds were hampering helicopter flights, the ministry said.
Joshua Sacco, a member of parliament in Chimanimani district, said at least 25 houses were swept away following a mudslide at Ngangu township.
“There were people inside,” he told AFP news agency. “The information we have so far is that over 100 people are missing.”
In a Twitter post, Jacob Mafume, spokesman for Zimbabwe’s main opposition Movement for Democratic Change party, warned that there was a “serious humanitarian crisis” unfolding in eastern Zimbabwe districts.
In Mozambique, where Idai made landfall on Thursday, at least 19 people died and about 70 were severely injured. The storm hit with wind gusts of about 160 kilometres per hour, causing ocean waves of up to nine metres high.
Luis Fonseca, a journalist at Lusa News Agency, said that the cyclone was expected to dissipate on Saturday in Mozambique, but it would continue to create trouble.READ MORE
“The problem now is that the rivers are likely to flood all the areas around, and this will cause even more damage to all these families which have [already] lost their houses.”
“Now they risk losing their harvest and food insecurity is the next big risk in all over this area,” Fonseca explains.
Local officials in Mozambique said that heavy rains earlier in the week, before the cyclone struck, had already claimed another 66 lives, injured scores and displaced 17,000 people.
When the cyclone hit Mozambique, authorities were forced to close the international airport in the port city of Beira after the air traffic control tower, the navigation systems and the runways were damaged by the storm.
An official at the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) of Mozambique told AFP on Friday “there is extreme havoc”.
“Some runway lights were damaged, the navigation system is damaged, the control tower antennas and the control tower itself are all damaged.”
“The runway is full of obstacles and parked aircraft are damaged.”
Heavy downpours in neighbouring Malawi this week have also affected almost a million people and claimed 56 lives there, according to the latest government toll.
South Africa‘s military has sent in aircraft and 10 medical personnel to help in Mozambique and Malawi, it said in a statement on Saturday.
THE US embassy in Harare has reacted angrily to continued suggestions by government that President Donald Trump’s sanctions on Zimbabwe are hurting ordinary citizens.
Since the enactment of the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA) in 2001, authorities in Harare and Washington have heckled over the effects of what successive US leaders claims are measures targeted at individuals.
Former President Robert Mugabe until his removal from power by coup in November 2017 accused the US of adopting covert means to elbow him out of office. His successor President Emmerson Mnangagwa who came to power on the back of what he called military assisted transition initially declared he would not blame sanctions for Zimbabwe’s economic problems but now seems to have changed tune.
The Zanu PF leader has found willing cheerleaders in the region and beyond including Sadc and the African Union who have all called for the “unconditional lifting of sanctions on Zimbabwe” because they are hurting ordinary citizens.
Emerson Mnangagwa and former president Robert Mugabe
But the US embassy in Harare took to twitter, Thursday to hit back.
“The US does not maintain comprehensive sanctions against Zimbabwe. Suggestions that the US intends to harm the Zimbabwean people with sanctions are false and misleading,” the short statement said in part.
According to the embassy “…US targeted sanctions list: 84 individuals and 56 entities. People of Zimbabwe: 16 million +. Sanctions do not target the people of Zimbabwe.”
It added: “The US targets sanctions on those who engage in corruption, violate human rights or undermine democratic institutions, not the people of Zimbabwe.”
In the latest executive order renewing the sanctions on Zimbabwe, Trump said the southern African country remained a “threat to US foreign policy.”
“The actions and policies of these persons continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States. For this reason, the national emergency declared on March 6, 2003 and measures adopted on that date, on November 22, 2005 and on July 25, 2008, to deal with that emergency, must continue in effect beyond March 6, 2019,” the statement read.
Zimbabwe Foreign Affairs Minister Sibusiso Moyo in a statement said the renewal of the measures shows US’s lack of appreciation of what Mnangagwa has been doing in terms of reform.
“They (sanctions) affect the poor and worsen the economic conditions they are intended to correct…they should be removed as they are inhumane and an unnecessary setback to efforts to improve relations between nations.
“The government of Zimbabwe reiterates once more that the renewal of sanctions on the country is tantamount to a political agenda setting and contrary to the spirit of re-engagement, the pillar of the otherwise thawing relations between the USA administration under President Trump and the new political dispensation in Zimbabwe under President Emmerson Mnangagwa,” said Moyo.
Critics argue the measures are used by the US to paint Zimbabwe in bad economic and political light while stifling the country’s ability to attract investment as well as placing hurdles in the international finance system.
SowetanLIVEMnangagwa’s first five months in power characterised by public service strikes.
Zimbabwe’s public sector balks on strike, teachers to down tools
Zimbabwe’s main public sector union has backed down from plans for a national strike, citing the volatile situation after security forces cracked down on protesters this month, but teachers will go ahead with a work stoppage.
Previous strike turned violent and met by harsh crackdown
Teachers to proceed with strike, exposing union divisions
305,000 workers demanding wage rises in dollars
Mnangagwa accused of failing to deliver on promises (Adds another teachers’ union to strike)
The Zimbabwe Teachers Union (ZIMTA) and Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe said in a joint statement on Thursday that their more than 55,000 members will not report for duty from next Tuesday, exposing a split between the education sector and the rest of the civil service.
“Our members will be withdrawing their services/labour and will not be reporting for duty with effect from the said date,” the unions said. A ZIMTA official said other smaller teachers’ groups would likely join the strike.
Wage negotiations between the government and the Apex Council, which represents 17 public sector unions, broke down on Wednesday. The unions then met to decide a date for a strike and announce it this week but the talks ended in disarray.
“Apex feels that its not conducive to take action,” Cecilia Alexander, Apex Council’s chairwoman told Reuters.
“The situation is volatile and polarized and the action we take may be hijacked for issues which have nothing to do with labour.”
A three-day strike called by another union from Jan. 14 over a fuel price hike by President Emmerson Mnangagwa turned into violence and looting. Rights groups say at least 12 people were killed but police say only three died.
The events of the past two weeks exposed the instinctive heavy-handedness of security forces, leading many to say that Mnangagwa is reverting to the strongarm tactics used by his predecessor Robert Mugabe, who was removed in a coup in 2017.
Zimbabweans say Mnangagwa is failing to deliver on pre-election promises to provide accessible health and education and jobs to the majority, leading to growing frustration that analysts say could trigger further unrest.
The government’s 305,000 workers are demanding wage rises and payments in dollars to help them stave off spiralling inflation and an economic crisis that has sapped supplies of cash, fuel and medicines in state hospitals.
Unions have traded accusations of being paid by the opposition and donors to go on strike and cause violence.
Mnangagwa’s spokesman acknowledged the difficult economic situation on Wednesday but said it would take time to rebuild after suffering for decades.
More than 1,000 people were arrested for public order offences following the protests in mid-January and lawyers say they have been unable to extend representation to several hundred detainees including children.
Evan Mawarire, the most prominent among those arrested and charged with subversion, was on Wednesday night released from the country’s maximum prison after two weeks in detention. He told reporters at the prison that he was held with more than 300 others, some with broken limbs and in need of medical care.
Zimbabwe granted Oliver Mtukudzi national hero status, granting him a status following his death that has been a preserve for ruling party elites and independence veterans.
His body lay in state on Friday and early Saturday morning at the Mtukudzi homestead in Norton and was transported to the National Sports Stadium where a tribute concert is being held on Saturday afternoon.
Thereafter, the body will be transported to the One Commando barracks where army officials will transport it by air to Madziwa where it will lie in state until Sunday.
Zimbabwe granted Mtukudzi national hero status, granting him a status following his death that has been a preserve for ruling party elites and independence veterans.
National heroes are ordinarily buried at the National Heroes Acre, however, Mtukudzi’s family requested to honour his wishes of being buried at his place of birth.
The state has provided buses for members of the public from various areas across the country.
