Diarrhea outbreak hits Hopley Farm squatter Camp

By Tererai Karimakwenda
20 January 2006

A severe outbreak of diarrhoea is reported to have hit Hopley Farm outside Harare last week and has continued to affect residents at the crowded squatter camp. The site is where government is keeping some of the victims of last year’s demolition exercise Operation Murambatsvina and blocking any outsiders from gaining access. But as heavily guarded as it is, a resident who managed to get out told our Harare correspondent Simon Muchemwa that officials were forced to allow the United Nations Children’s agency UNICEF to come in with medication as the diarrhoea spread to more residents. He said 2 cases of cholera had also been detected.

Muchemwa said he was aware the place has only 2 toilets, one for each gender, which were donated by the UN. But the estimated 3000 men, women and children have to relieve themselves in the woods when the queues are too long. UNICEF has been providing residents with 2 packets of a salt and sugar mixture per day in efforts to manage the diarrhoea. The task is made more difficult by the lack of running water and nutritional food at the site. Muchemwa said residents get their water from a nearby dam and other streams in the area.

Earlier this month, Sekesai Makwavarara and the illegal commission running the capital banned the public sale of fish and all meat products, and shut down the Mbare Musika fruit and vegetable market in what they said was an effort to control the spread of these diseases. Yet the new location where they relocated the vendors is already reported to be a mess. Muchemwa scouted the place, which is an open ground outside the City Sports Centre, and said the green grass there is now just brown mud due to heavy rains and market traffic. Residents of the exclusive suburbs of Ridgeway and Belvedere are complaining that the vendors and customers are using the area as toilets.

Cholera and diarrhoea have been major health problems for displaced families who no longer have safe water and clean toilets, and as we reported, it is the government that created an unhealthy environment by failing to collect refuse and destroying the homes of nearly a million people who otherwise had some access to running water and clean toilets.